National and Colonial Language Discoursesin Japan and its Colonies, 1868-1945

by

Mina Hattori

Bachelor of Music, McGill University, 2008

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

in

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

(Asian Studies)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

(Vancouver)

October 2011

© Mina Hattori, 2011

ii

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the colonialist discourse in Japanese linguistics in the

period from 1868 to 1945, the time when Japan changed from a semi-feudal isolated

country to a modernized nation and a colonizer. To address the complexity caused by

such rapid development, and namely, to show how modernization and colonialism shaped

Japanese language studies during this period, I present my analysis in two parts: the first

part explores multiple facets of Japanese language education in the colonial period, both

on Japanese territory and in Japanese colonies, particularly on the Korean Peninsula; the

second part is a study of language manuals for Japanese soldiers. Although I examine

some multilingual manuals, my main focus is on Korean language manuals because their

number far exceeds that of other languages and also because Korea is my primary

research area.

My claim is that a careful examination of language manuals as well as of Japanese

language education both in Japan and its colonies reveals one of the characteristic

features of Japanese colonial linguistics: a situation when a standard-in-the-making was

simultaneously being exported to colonial sites with variable success rates. Before the

Japanese language went abroad, and more importantly, after its export, the struggle over

what kind of Japanese language to teach continued to be a matter of controversy and was

never settled until the U.S. occupied Japan and implemented educational reforms. But

superimposed on all the debates was always the conflicting concept of kokugo (national

language), which was so over-politicized that it precluded the possibility of any academic

reforms or structural refinements in tandem with its political expansion overseas. As my

study shows, one of the reasons for this complexity was that not only nationalism but also

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pan-Asianist discourse played a significant role in the Japanese colonial enterprise in East

Asia. The language manuals for Japanese soldiers that I examine were published

between 1882 and 1935. As the publication years grow more recent, we can see, in the

prefaces and the contents, shifts in the forms of nationalism and pan-Asianist rhetoric

occurring simultaneously with the rise of colonialist discourse.

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Table of Contents

Abstract.................................................................................................................................... iiTable of Contents ................................................................................................................... ivList of Tables .......................................................................................................................... vi1. Introduction........................................................................................................................ 12. Kokugo (national language) and nihongo (Japanese) ..................................................... 7

2.1 Construction of kokugo: Ueda Kazutoshi’s two frameworks ........................................ 82.2 Standardization of Japanese I: the beginning................................................................. 92.3 Standardization of Japanese II: reformists vs. conservatives....................................... 11

3. Japanese as the “common language” in East Asia........................................................ 133.1 Kokugo in Korea and Taiwan ...................................................................................... 17

3.1.1 Korea (1910-1945)............................................................................................................. 193.1.2 Taiwan (1895-1945) .......................................................................................................... 22

3.2 Teaching nihongo, not kokugo ..................................................................................... 283.2.1 Tōa Dōbun Shoin (East Asia Common Culture Academy) ................................................ 29

3.3 Japanese language education in the occupied regions ................................................. 313.3.1 Southern Sakhalin (1905-1945) ......................................................................................... 333.3.2 Kwangtung province and the surrounding areas of the Manchurian Railway Company(1905-1945) .................................................................................................................................343.3.3 The island mandates in the Pacific (Micronesia) (1914-1945) .......................................... 353.3.4 Manchukuo (1932-1945) ...................................................................................................373.3.5 Occupied areas in North and Central China (1938-1945).................................................. 393.3.6 The Philippines (1942-1945) ............................................................................................. 423.3.7 Malaya and Singapore (1942-1945)................................................................................... 433.3.8 Indonesia (1942-1945).......................................................................................................453.3.9 Burma (1942-1945)............................................................................................................ 47

3.4 Summary – status of nihongo and other languages in the sphere ................................ 493.5 Conclusions.................................................................................................................. 51

4. Nationalism and pan-Asianism in linguistic discourse ................................................. 534.1 Methodology: Erica Benner’s four patterns of national thinking ................................ 544.2 Japan’s nation-building and soldiers’ encounters with the ‘Other’ ............................. 574.3 Colonial discourse in the prefaces and contents of language manuals ........................ 63

4.3.1 Analysis of the prefaces.....................................................................................................644.3.1.1 Early Meiji period: 1880-1899 – the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5)............................ 64

4.3.1.1.1 Noteworthy phrases with respect to language and colonial discourse ................ 674.3.1.2 Late Meiji period: 1900-1910 – the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)........................... 72

4.3.1.2.1 Noteworthy phrases with respect to language and colonial discourse ................ 774.3.1.3 Post-annexation period: from 1911 to 1945 ............................................................... 98

4.3.1.3.1 Noteworthy phrases with respect to language and colonial discourse ................ 994.3.2 Analysis of the contents...................................................................................................104

4.3.2.1 About enemies – China and Russia vs. Japan .......................................................... 1044.3.2.2 Self-esteem as high as Mt. Fuji ................................................................................ 107

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4.3.2.3 Healthy degree of skepticism or obsessive doubt? ................................................... 1084.3.2.4 How to make diehard patriots................................................................................... 1094.3.2.5 Civilization talk ........................................................................................................ 1104.3.2.6 Filth vs. cleanliness – savagery and colonial discourse............................................ 1124.3.2.7 Eyes on Korea – critiques of its “backwardness” and Japan’s leadership................ 1134.3.2.8 Racialist discourse – Westerners as descendants of monkeys..................................116

4.3.3 Summary.......................................................................................................................... 1174.4 Pan-Asianism in the sinographic cultural sphere....................................................... 117

4.4.1 Pan-Asianism in Japan vis-à-vis shifts in Japanese nationalism......................................1194.4.2 Korea before 1905 – nationalism vs. pan-Asianism ........................................................ 1244.4.3 Summary: limitations of pan-Asianism – the perspective of kokugo .............................. 125

5. Conclusions..................................................................................................................... 127Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 136

vi

List of Tables

Table 1: Japanese language education in the occupied regions........................................ 15Table 2: List of the language manuals studied................................................................. 130

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1. Introduction

If you were an American fluent in English and, say, in Persian or Arabic, and

were asked to publish a language manual for American soldiers dispatched to the areas

where those languages are spoken, which kind of manual would you write? First, you

might want to state your reasons to author a manual in your preface, explaining the

significance of military enterprise in the region along the lines of peace-keeping and

democracy building to secure the welfare of the people as well as the stability of the

surrounding regions – something perhaps only the U.S. can do – and that all this will lead

to future benefits in business, a better quality of life, peace on earth, etc. Second,

depending on the amount of time you would expect your readers to spend on your

manual, you would decide if you would include transcriptions in the Arabic alphabet or

stick to the English alphabet. Third and most importantly, you would decide on your

content. Because your target readers are soldiers, the content should stay more practical

and conversational rather than literary and packed with grammatical explanations. You

would imagine which kinds of phrases soldiers would need to use, privately or officially,

and write them down. How much is it? Where do you come from? Did you see any armed

soldiers here recently? Please don’t be scared; we are here to protect you from the bad

guys...

What I will examine in this thesis are not language manuals written for

American soldiers in the twenty-first century, but those intended for Japanese soldiers

about a century ago. Like today in North America, a variety of language manuals were

sold at bookstores in Japan in the late nineteenth century. The popular languages were

English, French, and German – the all-important languages of Western knowledge at that

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time – but there was also a demand for Korean, Chinese, and Russian languages as well,

albeit for different reasons.

Writing language manuals for soldiers cannot be simply language instruction,

due to the time constraints on soldier training, nor can it be free from social/political

ramifications due to the strategic value of the enterprise. In this thesis, I examine

language manuals for Japanese soldiers to show how language was used in colonialist

discourse. By the word “discourse” I mean not just the ideological coloring of

phraseology found in the texts, but rather how those various forms of language

intertwined with the deeds of soldiers and educators in colonial sites along with the types

of reactions the colonized peoples had to those forms of language. Importantly, it is the

differences that matters the most – the differences found throughout the colonial period’s

various experiments with the language standards in Japan.

Regarding colonial linguistics, there is a substantial amount of scholarship about

the relationship between language and colonialism in the former colonies of the European

powers in Africa and India, but research on the impact of Japanese colonial rule on the

formation of Korean linguistics has been overlooked. What is special about the Japanese

colonial enterprise vis-à-vis other colonial powers is that the formation of the nation-state

ideology and imperial expansion took place almost simultaneously, that language was a

key tool in both projects. Japan launched its colonial enterprise without waiting for

domestic standardization of the language, a fact that often caused chaos in Japan’s

language policies.

I also examine the kinds of theoretical frameworks prevalent in language

policies, which can be observed in the contents and prefaces of language manuals. First I

3

introduce the four-pattern theory of national thinking presented by Erica Benner (2006)

and examine how the military conscription system functioned in Japan’s nation building.

Unliberated farmer soldiers learned the modern apparatus of Western lifestyle in the

military and experienced encounters internal and external to Japan through the journey to

the war front, which facilitated a shift in identity from a local/provincial type to a national

identity. Moreover, pan-Asianism was the favorite rhetoric and pet theory of the

language manual authors. The problem with analyzing the historical phenomenon of pan-

Asianism is the fact that many of its protagonists were Japanese, who often asserted

Japanese leadership in a pan-Asian regional order, a trend related to Japanese

colonialism. As a result, ideals such as Asian solidarity and equality favored by early

pan-Asianists were pushed into the background. Nonetheless, pan-Asianism and

nationalism emerged as two major modern ideologies in Korea when Korea began to face

Western challenges, and the triumph of nationalism over pan-regionalism was historically

contingent, following Japan’s annexation of Korea that remodeled the concept of pan-

Asianism from an equal alliance against the West into an alliance with the Japanese as an

“enlightened leader” burdened with a “civilizing mission.”

Although my primary interest is on Korea, these wartime language manuals

frequently cover not only Japanese and Korean, but also other languages including

English, Mandarin, and Russian, thus instantiating a multilayered discourse on the target

languages as well as on the Japanese language itself. These language guides are

particularly important because

(1) soldiers’ speech is based on strictly colloquial language, which helps us

acquire a close reading of levels of polite speech and the language discourse

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behind them. Koyama (2003:505, 539) posits that the military was one of the

sites whence the discourse on modern Japanese honorifics derives;

(2) soldiers’ speech has an extensive, lingering effect on the target locales due to

the contemporary social pervasiveness of the military as well as the authority

behind it. For example, in postwar Japan, some soldiers’ expressions and

manners of speech became ubiquitous and were adopted by lay people with or

without their original connotations (Kida:106);

(3) the Japanese colonial gaze that is so often identifiable in the manuals is far-

reaching – the Japanese absorbed the framework of hegemonic Western models

(Sung:17) together with their “Orientalist mindset” (Said, 1993:394). After

opening to the West in 1868, Japan adopted en masse Western knowledge and the

military apparatus from the European imperialist powers: England, France, and

Germany (Kida: 94, 98).

The most significant published works on the language manuals to date are

Minami (1999), Yamada (2004), and Sung (2010). While the focus of Minami and

Yamada is primarily on language manuals and language journals that promoted the

Korean Language Encouragement Policy of the Japanese Government-General during

Japanese colonial rule over the Korean peninsula (1910-1945), Sung examines manuals

published in the Meiji era (1868-1912) in order to examine the formation of modern

Japanese linguistics in a rather technical manner. Although both Yamada and Sung

provide comprehensive philological research in their work, their critical studies remain

shallow with respect to the impact of colonialism on linguistic discourse. For instance,

5

even though Yamada and Sung include the multilingual language guides in their lists,

they do not take English, Mandarin, Russian, etc. into consideration, which could have

added much diversity to their studies. Also, even though his focus is not on languages,

the work by Ichinose (2004) examines a number of how-to manuals for Japanese soldiers1

packed with canned phrases for greetings, speeches and letters as well as military

knowledge and on-the-field survival hints. This type of manual enjoyed wide circulation,

starting with the launch of the compulsory military system in Japan in 1873 and lasting

until the end of WWII. According to Ichinose, the authors of the manuals covered in his

book were little known (as were the authors of the language manuals), which shows a

bottom-up vector for the production of such manuals. This in turn is a clear example of

how power operates at the micro-levels, expanding from the grassroots upward, and not

as the previously accepted top-to-bottom model of colonialist discourse, focused on the

decisions of the ruling elite, would otherwise suggest.

The sections below are as follows:

In Chapter 2, I describe the formation of the Japanese national language, mainly

relying on the work of Lee Yeounsuk (2009);

Chapter 3 examines what happened when the Japanese language went overseas;

In Chapter 4, I first introduce the four-pattern theory of national thinking

presented in Erica Benner (2006) as the basic framework for my analysis to observe the

developments in colonial discourse in the language manuals for Japanese soldiers. Then I

1 According to Ichinose (2004), there was no official guide or textbook issued by the military for soldiersuntil the outbreak of WWII, notwithstanding the amount of knowledge that soldiers were obliged tomemorize. Drill instructors taught soldiers how to address one’s superiors, and how to pronounceformulations, strategies, regulations, etc., verbally; in the meanwhile, many manuals were authoredprivately by military officers or retired officers (20).

6

contextualize the background against which the language manuals were written and cover

the history of pan-Asianist frameworks, discursive features of which figured prominently

in the prefaces and contents of the language manuals.

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2. Kokugo (national language) and nihongo (Japanese)

Let me begin the discussion by posing the following question: what is the

difference between kokugo (national language) and nihongo (Japanese)? One might say

that the term kokugo is used when nihongo is learned or spoken by Japanese nationals.

Thus, the term kokugo is burdened with nation-state ideology while nihongo is not.

Nonetheless, nihongo is not free from the implications of modernity. Indeed, collective

speech varieties spoken within the archipelago only became nihongo or a language called

“Japanese” at a certain point in recent history.

Perhaps the most well-known example of language ideology in the world is

French. From the time of the French Revolution to the present, people who respect

“liberty, equality and fraternity” and speak French are allegedly accepted into France. In

the case of the French language, an entity “called ‘national language’ appeared during the

French Revolution in order to support the modern nation-state: the French language, as la

langue nationale, became the symbol of the nation’s spiritual unity. Nonetheless, even

before the revolution, the sense of linguistic identity already existed as a truism, which

had been manipulated by the Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts or Académie Française.

The revolutionaries were but the successors to this ready-made linguistic tradition.” (Lee:

2). Such was not the case with the Japanese language. In modern Japan, nihongo never

provided the solid foundation for the construction of kokugo, the national language; it

was rather, “only after the showy tower of kokugo was constructed that the foundation,

the identity of the Japanese language, was hurriedly made up” (ibid.).

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2.1 Construction of kokugo: Ueda Kazutoshi’s two frameworks

An entrepreneur of the “showy tower”, Ueda Kazutoshi (1867-1937) was given a

professorial position in the department of linguistics at the Imperial University in 1894 on

his return from Europe. During Ueda’s stay in Europe, his encounter with the

Neogrammarians and the Allgemeiner Deutscher Sprachverein (All-German Language

Association) had had a great impact on Ueda (Lee: 85). “The two organizations were

distinct in their character: the former was an academic movement mainly among

universities, while the latter was initiated by an association that also involved public

membership” (ibid.: 85). Ueda’s later work also exhibits two different vectors –

academic and political – both rooted in his experience with Prussian-German nationalism.

“Academic research into language and pragmatic policy-making about language were

two indispensable leading characters on the same stage, called the nation-state” (ibid.:

86).

Ueda’s lecture Kokugo to kokka to (The National Language and the Nation-State)

(1894) was quite daring because nobody before him had so directly connected the

concept of kokugo to the nation-state and justified, in scholarly terms, the internal and

organic connection between the two (ibid.: 87). “Ueda’s view of language reminds us of

Humboldt’s: a language forms the worldview of the people who speak it. After

Humboldt, the stress on the organic and spiritual relation between a people and their

language became one of the traditional German views about language.” (ibid.: 89) Ueda

characterizes the ideology of kokugo as follows: “A language for the people who speak it

is the symbol of the spirit of the brethren, just like the blood shared by their bodies.

Therefore, the language of the Japanese nation is the spiritual blood of the Japanese

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people. The kokutai (national polity) of Japan is maintained by this spiritual blood, and

the Japanese race is unified by this most strong and long-preserved tie.” (ibid.: 89-90)

This is the political significance of Ueda’s kokugo idea. I will describe his

academic endeavors, such as the construction of a uniform Japanese language through

language standardization, in the following section.

2.2 Standardization of Japanese I: the beginning

Before the Meiji period, the distance between the spoken and written language in

Japan was extraordinary. It was only when the social order, which had supported and

allowed these two language varieties to coexist without conflict, started to collapse that

people became aware of the distance. Kanbun (Classical Chinese)-style language was

used for cultural and administrative matters among intellectuals and the samurai class

throughout the Edo era (1603-1867). Some Meiji intellectuals attempted to bridge the

gap between the spoken and written language in a movement that came to be called

genbun itchi (unification of the written and spoken language).

It is peculiar that genbun itchi – in essence a kind of vernacularization – was

believed to be the key to future success as a modern nation-state as well as a linguistic

weapon to compete with Western powers. The Japanese situation was similar to that of

China and Korea, where the distance between the written and spoken languages was just

as far as that in premodern Japan. The Petition for Actions towards Genbun itchi

(Genbun itchi no jikkō ni tsuite no seigan) submitted by the Imperial Board of Education

in February 1901 (Meiji 34) says: “European countries liberated themselves three

hundred years ago from the domination of the Latin language, and their exercise of

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genbun itchi since then advanced their civilization and enlightenment and enabled them

to become wealthy nations with a strong military; by contrast, the Koreans, Jurchens,

Khitans, Manchus, and Mongols failed to realize genbun itchi, and consequently these

nations were doomed to wither; currently in Japan, the difficulty in learning Japanese

language, script, and styles has been distracting people’s tremendous energy from

‘gaining other necessary and useful knowledge’; this was ‘an extreme waste for Japan,

which is now in a race with the world,’ and ‘genbun itchi must come first and foremost in

educational reform.’” (ibid.: 53)

In 1902, following the approval of the petition, the Imperial Board of Education in

February created the Kokugo Chōsa Iinkai (National Language Investigative Committee),

an official governmental committee, with Ueda Kazutoshi as director. The ultimate goal

of the committee was to establish the hyōjungo (standard language) – a linguistic norm

premised on the spoken language as its base. Ueda was an advocate of rōmaji (Latin

script) and the abolition of Chinese characters since he firmly believed that sound was the

essence of language and that the “ideographic” Chinese characters, which did not

represent sounds, defied this purpose. He set as “the ‘ultimate goal’ of kokugogaku

(studies of the national language) the realization of ‘correct speaking, reading and

writing’ among the people. This clearly indicated that the research goal of kokugogaku

was not the language itself, but to make real the ideal of kokugo… Therefore, it could not

exist without practicing the education and policies of kokugo.” (ibid.: 105)

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2.3 Standardization of Japanese II: reformists vs. conservatives

Ueda set up the overall schema of kokugo, and, after his retirement, his student,

Hoshina Kōichi, upholding his determination to carry on Ueda’s work in language policy

and education, combated the ultranationalistic conservative scholars and literati who

firmly believed in a “sacred tradition” of kokugo protected under the kokutai (national

polity).

Beginning with his appointment by the Ministry of Education in 1898, Hoshina

persistently advocated “the adoption of the phonetic way of writing kana (Japanese

vernacular), the reduction of Chinese characters with a view toward their ultimate

abolition, and the use of colloquial language in public sectors.” (Lee: 119) In reality,

however, none of his efforts and plans came to fruition at that time. It was only after the

war ended and his rivals – ultranationalistic scholars – were swept away that his kokugo

reforms started to move forward (ibid.). The postwar kokugo reform was not forced by

the occupation army, but was “rather a realization of the plans that the reformists among

the bureaucrats had already drawn up before the war” (ibid: 120). “The reformists in the

government, represented and led by Hoshina, almost all survived in spite of the military

defeat.” (ibid.:121)

In the field of language before 1945, the conservatives and the reformists were in

constant confrontation regarding the problems and policies of kokugo. The conservatives

identified kokugo with kokutai (the national polity) and opposed kokugo reform as

antinational. Both domestically and in the colonies the conservatives did not see any

need for kokugo reforms. On the other hand, in view of domestic language issues,

Hoshina, the front man of the reformists, was anxiously seeking approval for a language

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policy in the overseas colonies. “He aimed to expand the domination of the Japanese

language by assimilating different ethnic groups in the colonies. His argument for this

was a typical representation of linguistic colonialism. For Hoshina, domestic kokugo

reform and language politics overseas were inseparable, or rather, ultimately

complementary as prerequisite to each other.” (ibid.: 121)

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3. Japanese as the “common language” in East Asia

Between the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and the second Sino-Japanese War

(1937-1945), as the mix of formal and informal Japanese imperial possessions had

formed rapidly, “the Japanese flag could be found flying over a vast expanse in East Asia

and the western Pacific: the colonies of Taiwan, Korea, and Sakhalin; the island mandates

in the Pacific; the satellite regime of Manchukuo in Northeast China, and a network of

treaty port settlements in China” (Duus: ix). In these areas – the so-called “Greater East

Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”2 – the Japanese language was taught to the locals as the

“common language (kyōtsūgo).” Why was it Japanese that was to be the common

language in the sphere? According to Hoshina, “it is a general principle in the history of

language that when uncivilized people have contact with civilized people, the former

adopt a great part of the latter’s language” (Lee: 196). Also, Hoshina argued for the

necessity of a common language because different languages were spoken not only

between different ethnic groups, but even among the same group. Indeed, others who

learned from Ueda, such as Ogura Shinpei, more or less shared this similar idea, and in

the case of the latter, applied this view to the situation in Korea (Yasuda: 116). This view,

to be sure, had nothing to do with opinions held by colonial subjects.

However, although Japanese language education and subjugation policies were

always enforced on the locals, the relations between the colonizer and the colonized were

not always simple and should not be reduced to a simple dichotomy of coercion and

2 The term and the concept came into usage during Konoe Fumimaro’s cabinet in 1938, a year after thesecond Sino-Japanese War broke out (Tani: 2). Konoe Atsumaro (1863-1904), the father of Prime MinisterKonoe Fumimaro, after experiencing Western racism toward Asians in Europe, founded the Nankin DōbunShoin – the precursor of the Tōa Dōbun Shoin (East Asia Common Culture Academy) – in 1900 topromote future harmony and cooperation between Chinese and Japanese youths (Reynolds, 1998: 76).Many of its graduates were later recruited to Manchukuo and other parts of China (Reynolds, 1989: 246,262). For further details on the Tōa Dōbun Shoin, please refer to Reynolds (1989; 1998) and Kurita (1998).

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resistance. Tani argues that such a simplistic understanding of Japanese education has

been a virtually unquestioned dogma among scholars in the field, but it is gradually

losing its persuasiveness (Tani, 2006: 253). She presents the examples of Indonesia and

Burma, the former Dutch and British colonies, where the locals received school education

in Japanese and eventually rebelled against the Japanese as well as against the former

colonizers and achieved independence (ibid.: 253). Furthermore, in his book about

Japanese colonial “kokugo” education in Taiwan, Chen (2001) calls this relation between

colonizer and colonized “Dōka’ no dōshō imu (sleeping in the same bed of ‘assimilation’

while dreaming different dreams).” Different intentions lay behind “assimilation”

policies and these intentions changed over time and affected policies differently. The

Japanese, pushing kokugo education under the aegis of their “assimilation” policy,

attempted to limit the amount of “modern knowledge” in education, whereas Taiwanese,

absorbing the “modern knowledge” through education, claimed their rights and aimed for

resistance (Chen, 2001: 19). The significance of the works by Tani and Chen is in their

careful examination of the local responses against the policy and education. Mitsui

(2010) also employs a similar stance in his work which focuses on the language

movements in colonial Korea vis-à-vis the Government-General’s approach to Korean

orthography issues. I will cover their arguments in detail in the following sections.

Although Japanese language education was always enforced on the locals, the

name of the subject and the level of priority accorded it varied depending on the region,

as shown in the table below (Tani, 2000: ii)3:

3 The table is quoted from Tani (2000: iii) but its contents are simplified.

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Table 1: Japanese language education in the occupied regionsRegion4 Occupation

period

Name of the

subject (Japanese)

Years of

learning

Mandatory

or optional

Taiwan 1895-1945 Kokugo 4 or 6 years Mandatory

Southern Sakhalin 1905-1945 Kokugo 4 years Mandatory

Kwangtung province

in China

1905-1945 Nihongo 4 or 6 years Mandatory

Korea 1910-1945 Kokugo 4 years Mandatory

Island mandates in the

Pacific (Micronesia)

1914-1945 Kokugo 3 or 4 years Mandatory

Manchukuo 1932-1945 Nihongo 2 or 4 years Mandatory

Occupied areas in

North/Central China

1938-1945 Nihongo 6 years Mandatory

Philippines 1942-1945 Nihongo 4 years Mandatory

Malaya and Singapore 1942-1945 Nihongo 7 years Mandatory

Indonesia 1942-1945 Nihongo 3 or 6 years Mandatory

Burma 1942-1945 Nihongo 4 or 5 years Optional

Prior to the second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), education policy in overseas

territories was implemented separately by local institutions such as the Korean

Government-General, the Taiwanese Government-General, the Karafutochō樺太廰 in

4 The table excludes the regions that fell under the control of Japan between the Meiji Restoration (1868)and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), i.e. the Ryūkyūs, Hokkaido, and the Kurile Islands. Also, afterFrance fell under the control of Germany in 1940, Vietnam was occupied by Japan from 1940 to 1945 withthe permission of Vichy France government, yet Tani does not seem to have taken this into account.

16

Southern Sakhalin, the Kantōchō関東廰 in Kwangtung province, the Nan’yōchō南洋廰

in the Island mandates in the Pacific, the Manchurian Railway Company in its

surrounding areas, and so forth. The Japanese central government, i.e., the Ministry of

Education, could not openly interfere with the decisions made by the local governments.

However, as of 1938, when the Kōa-in (East Asia Development Board,興亜院5), the

institution in charge of the occupied areas in China, was established, the Ministry of

Education as well as the Kōa-in began to take part in Japanese language education policy

in the area (Tani: 3). Later in 1941, they established the Nihongo kyōiku shinkōkai

(Japanese Language Promotion Institute), which started to influence the language policies

of the other overseas territories and fostered interaction with Japanese domestic language

policies (ibid.).

Despite these attempts to spread the Japanese language throughout the Co-

Prosperity Sphere as its common language, Ueda’s students like Hoshina and Ogura

shared pessimistic views about the policy. Both were aware that obstacles to the overseas

advancement of Japanese were inherent in the language itself (Lee: 206; Yasuda: 104-5).

“There was no clear model language, no standard for vocabulary or pronunciation; there

was a flood of difficult kanji and kokugo; the kana usage was inconsistent with the

pronunciation; there was extreme disparity between the spoken and written languages.

Hoshina contended that unless these problems were solved, promotion of Japanese

overseas would be impossible.” (Lee: 207) “The moment that Japan tried to make

5 In 1942, as the war went on, Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki expanded the Kōa-in into a new Daitōa-shō (大東亜省, Ministry of Great East Asia), which was established to supervise the policies in regions outside ofthe Japanese archipelago, Korea, Taiwan, and Southern Sakhalin (Tani, 2006: 142).

17

Japanese the language of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, the mass of unsolved problems in

kokugo and its orthography resurfaced and became of pressing importance” (ibid.).

The unexpected move toward language reforms was actually prompted by the

Japanese army after the second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) broke out. “As a result

of the large increase in mobilization, the average literacy of the soldiers declined to a

degree that hindered the operation of weapons. Because of this, the army decided to

simplify the armament terms, in a series of reforms: the Regulations concerning

Simplification of Armament Names and Technical Terms in February 1940 limited the

number of kanji to 1,235 so that the soldiers who had finished normal elementary schools

could read and write them. […] The Guidelines for Kana Usage for Armaments in March

1941 adopted complete phonetic usage. These reforms, though confined to the army,

were in accord with what Hoshina had been hoping for…” (ibid.) Hoshina must have felt

that the time had finally come to enact kokugo reform, his dream of many years: the plans

that had been frustrated by “the tradition” at home would no longer be obstructed

overseas. He hoped that the reform overseas would reciprocally influence the

homeland’s language. Nevertheless, here again, his plan incurred criticism from the

conservative camp, which branded the idea of reform of Japanese for foreigners as

“blasphemy against the sacred tradition of kokugo” (ibid.: 208).

3.1 Kokugo in Korea and Taiwan

Compared to the case of modern-day Korea, where people are preoccupied with

erasing the colonial past and highlighting the Korean independence movement or Korean

cultural uniqueness, the situation in today’s Taiwan is quite different. The colonial

18

legacy, such as old Japanese-style buildings, is still visible and the older generation who

received education in Japanese like to show off their ability to speak Japanese, all of

which draws a vivid contrast to today’s Korea (Son: 12). What can account for this

difference? Taiwan was under Japanese control fifteen years longer than Korea, yet this

fact alone cannot explain this contrast in attitudes toward Japan and Japanese. As far as

language policy was concerned, there were no great differences between the two

colonies. Some attribute it to the difference in cultural “maturity” between pre-colonial

Korea and Taiwan (Tani, 2006: 97). Korea had been an independent country with a

distinct culture for many centuries while Taiwan had not (Tani, 2006: 97; Kim: 172-3). I

will suggest the following reasons to answer the question: 1) most of the Korean

peninsula was a monolingual environment, which facilitated the formation of nationalist

movements based on language and script, while Taiwan was largely multilingual, which

made it difficult for the locals to prepare a linguistic platform for independence

movements, 2) prior to the annexation, there had been many missionary schools in Korea,

which provided Koreans with another route whereby to access modern civilization, while

Taiwan had only a few missionary schools, most of which supported Japanese education.

Many have argued that colonialism was a primary factor in the rise of nationalism

throughout the world, and particularly outside the West. With the arrival of colonial

forces, native people launched cultural and political movements to counter the

unfortunate fate colonialism had dealt them (Shin: 41). Taiwan and Korea were no

exception. Establishing a national identity and solidarity, unique racial origins and

language, and especially a vernacular language, played a significant role in their anti-

Japanese movements. An important point is that in both Taiwan and in Korea there

19

existed parallel (and often overlapping) stances to absorb modern knowledge through

Japanese language education alongside a nationalist movements. However, due to the

above-mentioned reasons, the former was more conspicuous in Taiwan, while the latter

predominated in Korea, backed by the existence of a native vernacular script, han’gŭl.

3.1.1 Korea (1910-1945)

Han’gŭl, the word designating native Korean script, is a neologism coined by Chu

Sigyŏng sometime between 1910 and 1913 (King, 1997: 111). The language

entrepreneurs including Chu “argued eloquently and systematically for the connection

between language and nation and between national script and independence” (King,

1998: 63). Shin Gi-Wook argues that Japan’s efforts to subjugate Korea using the

discourses of colonial racism played a significant role in shaping the nature and

development of Korean nationalism (Shin: 42). The Government-General in Korea

specifically attempted to investigate Korean customs, cultures, traditions, rituals,

religions, and institutions, with the explicit purpose of providing a “scientific basis” for

colonial racism by searching for elements in Korean history and culture that could be

used for its assimilation policy (Shin: 44). “On its face the new Japanese policy appeared

to appreciate Korean tradition and culture, but its underlying goal was to demonstrate that

Korea was one part of the larger East Asian sphere in which Japan was dominant (Shin:

45).”

In 1920s Korea, a cosmopolitan outlook with little appreciation of Korea’s past

was prevalent. People “did not generally appreciate their traditions and culture, but rather

criticized their own historical heritage, especially the Confucian heritage, as backward

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and sought to reconstruct Korean nationality largely based on modern liberal Western

thought. The best-known example was Yi Kwangsu’s ‘Minjok kaejoron’ (A Theory of

National Reconstruction). Yi acquired a ‘modern’ education in Japan and returned to

Korea right after the March First movement. He became one of the most prolific writers

and influential intellectuals of the colonial period.” (ibid.: 46)6 Nevertheless, in the late

1920s this tendency began to change. As the Japanese stepped up their efforts to

assimilate all things Korean into a Japanese context, Korean nationalists began to defend

their heritage, reevaluating it in a more positive light, by defining the nation in racial and

collectivistic terms. “Efforts to preserve ancient remains and historical monuments grew

into a broader movement to invigorate studies on Korea” (ibid.: 50). Amid such booming

interest in Korean heritage, “han’gŭl befit a broader nationalist movement whose main

intention was to restore Korean national identity and culture” (ibid.: 52). Traditionalists’

efforts, however, were confined by and large to cultural, historical, or rhetorical arenas,

without any political power to lead Koreans to national independence. Through the

glorification of their past, Koreans were perhaps able to enhance their psychological pride

but they still fell short of altering their colonial condition.

Korean nationalists racialized the notion of the Korean nation, stressing the ideas

of shared blood and ancestry and the uniqueness and purity of the Korean nation. “While

Koreans contested the contents and meanings of colonial racism, they could not escape

from using the very logic and language of their colonizers” (ibid.: 55). First, nationalists

confronted certain inherent limits in subverting colonialist discourse. As Schmid (2002)

shows, “the Japanese influenced Korean nationalist thinking by producing knowledge of

6 Tikhonov (2010) argues in detail how Social Darwinist thinking was introduced and became prevalentamong Korean intellectuals via Japan, the most well-known example being from Fukuzawa to Yi Gwangsu.

21

and about Korea as well as by providing the conceptual vocabulary of modernity – ideas

such as munmyŏng kaehwa (‘civilization and enlightenment’ – bunmei kaika in

Japanese), social Darwinism, minjok (race, nation), and tongyang (the East).” Also, in

denouncing colonial racism and Japanese assimilation policy, Korean nationalists

employed the same logic and language that Japanese colonialists used (Shin: 55; Kim:

170). Kwŏnjŏng Kim states that the famous passage of Ch’oe Hyŏnbae (1894-1970), a

successor of Chu Sigyŏng, in which he argues that “a language is a spiritual product of

one ethnic group,” greatly resembles Ueda Kazutoshi’s “Japanese language is the

spiritual blood of the Japanese” (169). Besides, the genbun itchi (unification of the

spoken and written language) movement in Japan influenced contemporary Koreans in

shifting their writing from Chinese characters to the phonetic alphabet han’gŭl, in order

to narrow the gap between the written and spoken language, which was considered to be

a prerequisite to joining the circle of world powers by advocates of the movement

(Mitsui: 79-80).

After the March First Independence Movement in 1919, the Government-

General’s office kept a close watch over such language reform movements. In order to

bring them under control, they established a committee to fix the official Korean

orthography, let Korean activists join the committee, and adopted their ideas (ibid.: 66).

Although it was not an ideal setting for the Korean linguists, it was an important

opportunity to decide what orthography should be taught in schools in Korea (ibid.: 185).

Thus, they could not but take part in the committee to reflect their opinions on the official

orthography. From the standpoint of the Government-General, this roundtable for

Korean orthography was a part of the assimilation policy – Korean language to become

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part of Japanese. Taking advantage of Korean language nationalism, the Government-

General mobilized Korean researchers to the roundtable and appealed to Korean public

sentiment (ibid.: 187-8). Although Mitsui disagrees that these language activists can be

called “colonial collaborators,” he also criticizes that in today’s Korea, the Korean

Language Society (today’s Han’gŭl Society) has come to monopolize the history of the

language movement during the colonial period. This view ignores the existence of other

groups which rivaled the Korean Language Society and turns a blind eye to the fact that

the Korean linguists who joined the orthography committee of the Government-General

were all from the Korean Language Society. Their eventual hegemony over the other

groups was only guaranteed by taking advantage of the Government-General’s Korean

education infrastructure (ibid.: 231). This relationship in which both the colonizer and

colonized took advantage of each other for different purposes can be also observed in the

case of Taiwan.

3.1.2 Taiwan (1895-1945)

The linguistic situation in Taiwan was different from that in Korea, and one of the

most conspicuous differences was its linguistic diversity in pre-colonial times. Before

discussing language issues, let me touch briefly on the history of Taiwan. Originally,

residents in Taiwan before the seventeenth century were Malayo-Polynesian ethnic

groups. From 1624 to 1661, Taiwan was occupied by the East Indian Company of the

Netherlands, which had its headquarters in Java. In the meantime, the Spanish were

settled in the north for a short period of time but were soon driven out by the Dutch in

1642. From 1661 to 1683, a group led by Zheng Chenggong ruled the island, claiming

23

the revival of the Ming dynasty. In 1683, Taiwan came under the control of Qing China,

first as a part of Fujian province and later as a separate province from the late nineteenth

century onward. After defeating Qing China in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan

annexed Taiwan. Upon Japan’s defeat in WWII in 1945, although Taiwan was again

included into Mainland China, the conflict between the Communist Party and Nationalist

Party soon resumed and in 1949, when the Communist Party declared the establishment

of the People’s Republic of China, the Nationalist Party retreated to Taiwan. Then, the

Korean War broke out and as Communist China became preoccupied with supporting

North Korea, the United States began to protect Taiwan from the mainland as a part of its

anti-communist strategy (Wakabayashi, 2006: 18-9).

According to a recent sociolinguistic survey7, Taiwan consists of natives (1.7%),

immigrants from the southern part of Fujian province (73.3%), immigrants from the

northern part of Canton province (12%), and those who came from the mainland after

1945 (13%) (ibid.: 20). Prior to the Japanese annexation in 1895, the gap between

spoken and written languages was similar to that in Japan – only cultural elites used

Classical Chinese writing and the elite bureaucratic speech style called guanhua (ibid.:

21). Under colonial rule, the eagerness to absorb “modernity” or “modern civilization”

among Taiwanese facilitated the spread of the Japanese language, which came to function

as a common language between different ethnic groups (ibid.: 23). Until Japan

radicalized its assimilation policy in the 1930s, there were three kinds of language reform

movements8 in Taiwan: 1) the Chinese vernacular writing (baihua) movement, which

7 The result cited in Wakabayashi’s article is from 1995, but the latest survey shows no significant changeto date.8 For details, Wakabayashi suggests referring to Matsunaga Masayoshi’s article “Kyōdo bungaku ronsō(1930-32) ni tsuite [Concerning the disputes on vernacular literature]” (1989) and Chen Peifeng’s book

24

followed the contemporary trend in Mainland China, 2) the Taiwanese vernacular writing

movement, which, as a result of the difficulties in adapting baihua writing to Fukienese

and Cantonese, advocated inventing a vernacular writing system that would embrace all

the Chinese speech varieties in Taiwan, and 3) the Latin script movement, which

promoted the use of Latin script in transcribing vernacular speech, following the Bible

translation by Western missionaries, similar to the precedent in Vietnam (ibid.: 25; Son:

32).

Just as in Korea, Taiwan also had a Confucian tradition which emphasized the

importance of education. In addition, with rich natural resources, Taiwan had a relatively

wealthy society which could afford to pay the tuition for schooling (Chen, 2001: 13).

Although mutual communication between the colonizer and the colonized is crucial for

the sake of sound governance of the colony, setting up and running a comprehensive

educational infrastructure for the colonized required a great amount of effort and money

and was not always believed to be necessary. For instance, in the case of India, only

selected locals were allowed to receive education to work for the colonizer (ibid.: 13).

When Japan occupied Taiwan, the Japanese government was having financial difficulties

and dismissed Izawa Shūji, known as the first entrepreneur of the education system in

colonial Taiwan, who requested an increase in the education budget in order to install a

comprehensive kokugo education infrastructure for assimilating Taiwanese into

“Japanese” (ibid.: 61).

Following the standpoint presented by Mark R. Peattie, Chen argues that the

Japanese “assimilation” policy through kokugo education had two directions; one was

Dōka’ no dōshō imu – nihon tōchika taiwan no kokugo kyōikushi saikō [Different intentions behind“assimilation” – reconsidering Japanese colonial “kokugo” education in Taiwan] (2001).

25

“assimilation” into the Japanese national polity (kokutai), and the other was

“assimilation” into civilization and modernity in general. These two must be separated

and carefully analyzed within their contexts (ibid.: 24). While Izawa aimed for both

directions, Gotō Shinpei, the Taiwanese governor-general, and Mochiji Rokusaburō, a

director of the educational bureau under Gotō, only focused on the latter, using the

former as mere rhetoric (ibid.: 64). Unlike Izawa, a professional educator and

enthusiastic nationalist, Gotō, who had been a medical doctor, was a cool-headed,

pragmatic person (ibid.: 67). He was against ideological egalitarianism under the

emperor and denied the possibility of ethnic “assimilation.” Instead of spending a great

amount of budget on educating the locals, he planned to build vocational schools in

Taiwan to benefit from colonial enterprise (ibid.: 77-8). After he left Taiwan, Mochiji,

the director of the educational bureau, took over and continued this framework,

promising the Taiwanese equal rights when they became as “civilized” as the Japanese.

By trying to reduce the number of public schools, he attempted to improve the fiscal

situation (ibid.: 97).

What was the reaction of the Taiwanese to these policies? From the beginning,

the Taiwanese had a strong enthusiasm toward school education and even sent their

daughters to school, disguising them as males (ibid.: 103). At one point, when the Sino-

Japanese War (1894-5) broke out, they strongly resisted the education provided by the

Japanese, but after that, no matter how the Government-General changed its policies,

their basic stance of welcoming public education never changed (ibid.: 103). Taiwanese

anti-Japanese activists requested the Government-General to include Mandarin in school

curricula, but they also requested the construction of more public schools and never

26

mentioned abolishing Japanese language education (ibid.: 235). Also, unlike Korea,

which had been a relatively independent country for about a millennium, Taiwan had

never been an independent region, which resulted in their rather reluctant adherence to

their own traditions and independence, as compared to their obsession for new knowledge

(ibid.: 248).

Mochiji, however, felt threatened by Taiwanese’ strong motivation for learning,

which drove him to restrict access to education (ibid.: 105). During the Meiji period, the

schools for Japanese and Taiwanese were separated; the Japanese children studied at

shōgakkō (小学校) fully run by public funding, whereas the Taiwanese studied at

kōgakkō (公学校). Nonetheless, owing to this divided school system, the wealthy

families in Taiwan donated a lot of money to the latter, thinking the latter were their

schools (ibid.: 111). Regardless of the background of such donations, some biographical

writings of the Taiwanese intellectuals show their ambivalent feelings between pride for

the traditional Confucian schools (書房) and longing for the modern-style education at

kōgakkō (ibid.: 118).

Many Taiwanese had chosen kōgakkō as a place where they could absorb modern

knowledge and some also sent their children to Japan to learn more; on the other hand,

many Koreans had chosen missionary schools for the same purpose since some regarded

it a shame to send their children to schools built by the Japanese (ibid.: 119). At the time

of the annexation, there were many missionary schools in Korea, and the Japanese

schools were neither the only nor the best option for receiving a modern education, which

was not the case in Taiwan (ibid.: 119). When Taiwan was annexed, there were only five

Christian schools in all of Taiwan, all of which focused on religious learning and

27

accepted only Christians (ibid.: 119-20). Besides, unlike in Korea, where American

missionaries were the dominant force and had also played a political role against

Japanese occupation, missionaries in Taiwan were supportive of Japanese public

education and even recommended that their followers go to study in Japan (ibid.: 120).

Although Mochiji attempted to restrict access to education among the Taiwanese,

eventually the requests from the Taiwanese to build more schools as well as to receive

higher education grew in intensity and became hard to ignore. Moreover, the Qing

dynasty collapsed and a democratic government of the Han Chinese ethnic group was

established in Mainland China in 1912 (ibid.: 146, 151). Kumamoto Shigekichi, the

successor of Mochiji, was alarmed by the situation and feared the influence of the

mainland activists over the Taiwanese. At that point, the Taiwanese Government-

General began to advocate the necessity of “assimilating” Taiwanese into the Japanese

national polity (ibid.: 152). In order to stop the locals from going to study in schools in

Mainland China, they could not but enrich the educational infrastructure in Taiwan and

began to strengthen Taiwanese “assimilation” into the Japanese national polity (ibid.: 169,

172).

At primary school (kōgakkō), the students who had a good grasp of Japanese got

their compositions published by a well-known publisher with a preface written by a

famous writer such as Satō Haruo; on the other hand, the students who could not

pronounce Japanese words properly were severely scolded in class (Kawamura: 60). For

the Takasago ethnic group (高砂族) in Taiwan, the Japanese language functioned as a

common language as well as written medium between different tribes, which motivated

them to learn Japanese even more actively than the Han ethnic group (ibid.: 70). Despite

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the Musha Incident (霧社事件) in 1930, where 134 Japanese were killed by 200

Takasago ethnics, the effect of kokugo education was revealed in the work of Takasago

giyūtai (高砂義勇隊), a volunteer corps formed of Takasago youths during WWII (ibid.:

72).

3.2 Teaching nihongo, not kokugo

In September 1931, the Japanese Kwantung army occupied the northeastern part

of China and hastily created a new nation, Manchukuo, in the following year. “To justify

this fabricated nation, the authorities manipulated various strategies including the hollow

slogans such as gozoku kyōwa (the five races – Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Manchu, and

Mongol – live in harmony) and ‘create a utopian paradise’” (Lee: 182). Unlike the case

in Korea and Taiwan, the ethnic diversity initially found a positive meaning in

Manchukuo and later in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Following their

utopian slogan, Japanese had to teach nihongo, not kokugo to the locals in the

Manchukuo multiethnic and multilingual sphere. In such a situation, what status should

be given to the languages spoken in different areas and which language would be used in

government offices, courts, schools, and other public spheres? Although the Japanese

authorities produced “harmonizing” slogans, they were either unaware of these questions

or unwilling to answer them and consequently never legislated an official language or

status of other languages in the overseas territories.

29

3.2.1 Tōa Dōbun Shoin (East Asia Common Culture Academy)

Even prior to Manchukuo, Japanese language had been taught in Mainland China

since the late nineteenth century. While most foreign schools, including missionary

schools and Buddhist schools, derived from religious institutions, Nankin Dōbun Shoin

(Nanjing Common Culture Academy) – later renamed as Tōa Dōbun Shoin (East Asia

Common Culture Academy) – was a rare example unrelated to any religion (Reynolds,

1998: 77). The school was established in 1900 with Konoe Atsumaro (1863-1904) as its

head under the slogan of bringing together Chinese and Japanese youths through

language exchange (ibid.: 76). Nevertheless, right after the opening of the school,

teachers and students needed to be evacuated to Shanghai due to the influence of the

Boxer Rebellion, and when they reopened their school in Shanghai as the Tōa Dōbun

Shoin, they no longer accepted Chinese students due to financial difficulties in school

management (ibid.: 77).

An interesting aspect of the Tōa Dōbun Shoin can be found in its origins: the

founding entrepreneurs of the school were military men. Arao Sei (1858-1896), called

“shina rōnin (China adventurer),” was a member of the fifth class at Japan’s elite Shikan

Gakkō (Military Academy) and, several years later, he joined the China Section of the

army’s General Staff (Reynolds, 1989: 215). In a speech delivered in 1889, he said,

“while there, I had carefully calculated the cost of Japan’s defense needed over the next

ten years. Japan was too weak, I had felt, to take the profits of her trade with the West

out of Western hands; but China was closer to Japan, resembled her in many ways, and

therefore seemed a likelier source of profits” (ibid.: 215). Munakata Kotarō (1864-1923),

another founding member of Tōa Dōbunkai (East Asia Common Culture Association) –

30

the Tōa Dōbun Shoin’s sponsoring parent organization – worked for more than thirty

years as a China-based spy for the Japanese Navy (ibid.: 216). Later, Arao resigned from

the military to “devote himself completely to planning and promoting his trading

company and its auxiliary, Nisshin Bōeki Kenkyūjo (Japan-China Trade Research

Institute)” (ibid.: 217). His commitment to this field “derived from the demonstrated

incompetence of Japanese merchants in their trading encounters with China” (ibid.: 217).

Machida Jitsu’ichi (1842-1916), from the Navy, then a foreign service officer, was the

first Japanese consul at Hankow. He also shared the same opinion. Because of financial

difficulties at the institute, the Vice-Chief of Staff Kawakami sent support funding from

the General Staff (ibid.: 220).

In June 1893, after three years of training, eighty-nine students graduated from

Nisshin Bōeki Kenkyūjo, many of whom served as army interpreters and spies during the

Sino-Japanese War in the following year (ibid.: 221). Reynolds argues that this success

is “directly relevant to the subject of the Tōa Dōbun Shoin, because the institute served as

the direct model and inspiration of the latter, Japan’s second research and training

institution on China” (ibid.: 221). Whatever the original goal of the school, the institute

was heavily driven by military interests. Indeed, many graduates of the Tōa Dōbun Shoin

got jobs in Manchukuo and other parts of the Japanese informal empire in China (ibid.:

262-4). After Arao died in Taipei of bubonic plague in 1896, Arao’s right-hand man,

Nezu Hajime (1860-1927), a former Army Staff General, served as director of the Tōa

Dōbun Shoin from 1900 to 1923 (ibid.: 222-3). The school was founded in 1900 under

the initiative of Prince Konoe Atsumaro (1863-1904), the head of the House of Peers and

the Peers School, and the Tōa Dōbunkai (East Asia Common Culture Association), the

31

Tōa Dōbun Shoin’s sponsoring parent organization, had similarly been established by

Konoe in 1898 in Tokyo (ibid.: 224).

3.3 Japanese language education in the occupied regions

In most cases, kokugo had been taught entirely in Japanese under the propaganda

slogan that “the Japanese national spirit” is only understood and transmitted through “the

national language,” and even the use of other languages or speech varieties was strictly

prohibited in classrooms. On the other hand, nihongo was sometimes taught in the

languages spoken locally, depending on the region. For example, in Kwangtung province

in China, the region occupied by Japan as a result of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5),

the local authorities invited Japanese language instructors from Taiwan and Korea and

adapted their pedagogy for the teaching of Japanese (Tani: 21). In Manchukuo (1932-

1945), the language of instruction was officially Japanese but remained controversial due

to the popularity and efficiency of adopting Japanese textbooks with Chinese parallel

translations (ibid.: 22). In the occupied areas in North China, due to the lack of Japanese

instructors with a good grasp of Mandarin, the Japanese textbooks with Chinese

translations were considered an effective tool; however, the textbook compiled in 1941

for use in China presupposed the language of instruction to be Japanese and did not meet

the needs of the local situations (ibid.: 33). Here again, the kokugo dogma that “the

Japanese spirit” is only understood through Japanese language hindered efficient

classroom instruction even in the case of nihongo.

After attacking Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, the Japanese forces advanced

to the south, occupying Hong Kong and the Philippines in the following January,

32

Singapore in February, and Java and Burma in March, and established a military

government in the occupied territories. They soon started Japanese language education,

which lasted for about three and a half years (ibid.: 124). Unlike the Ministry of

Education, the Army and Navy, depending on the strategic importance and the amount of

natural resources in the regions, determined whether these regions would have

independence in the future, and set the levels of Japanese language education accordingly

(ibid.: 126-7). Nevertheless, “[a]s Hatano Sumio in his work on Japan’s Asian policy

during the Asia-Pacific War has pointed out, the declaration of independence for Burma

and the Philippines in 1943 was above all an attempt to prepare ‘Japan’s case’ for the

postwar era – at a time when defeat was already certain” (Saaler: 14).

From 1943 to 1944, in order to educate intermediates between the locals and the

military authority, the Japanese military dispatched a group of local students to Japan

from Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Burma, the Philippines, Sulawesi (Celebes), Borneo

(Kalimantan), and Seram (Ceram), who were the first state scholarship students of the

Japanese government – 193 students in total (Tani, 2006: 151-3). Moreover, the Japanese

military formed a “propaganda team (sendenhan宣伝班),” which imitated the

propaganda department under Nazi Germany. Famous writers, critics, scholars, poets,

painters, actors, etc., were mobilized to Malaya, the Philippines, Java, Burma, etc.; for

instance, Jinbo Kōtarō and Ibuse Masuji were sent to Malaya and Singapore, and Miki

Kiyoshi was sent to the Philippines (ibid.: 151). In 1942, upon the request of the Army

and Navy, the Ministry of Education planned to build a training centre for Japanese

language instructors for the Southern regions. They opened the institution, called the

Nanpō haken nihongo kyōiku yōin yōseijo (南方派遣日本語教育要員養成所; Training

33

centre for Japanese language instructors for the Southern regions), and the Nihongo

Kyōiku Shinkō-kai (日本語教育振興会; Association for the Promotion of Japanese

language Education)9 was in charge of the training and selection of the candidates

(Kawamura: 117).

3.3.1 Southern Sakhalin (1905-1945)

In accordance with the treaty after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), the

Southern half of Sakhalin Island was annexed by Japan, and in 1906 the administrative

ministry for Sakhalin, Karafutochō (樺太廰), was established (Tani, 2006: 95). Ainu

residents were not only forced to change their lifestyle to adopt Japanese manners, but

they were also displaced from their original homes to locations allotted by Karafutochō,

similarly to the case of aboriginals in the U.S. and Canada (ibid.: 95; Kawamura: 212).

As for their children, Karafutochō set up small schools (kyōikujo教育所) in relatively

large “camps” near the west coast, where all the expenses for their education, including

stationery supplies, etc., were paid (Tani: 95). In 1921, as Karafutochō met financial

difficulties in school management, the government employed all the instructors in the

kyōikujo as public employees and in 1930, they established a special school in Shisuka

for non-Ainu indigenous residents (ibid.: 96). In 1933, following the amendment of the

law on familial registry, the indigenous residents of Sakhalin also became “Japanese” and

were forced to change their names to Japanese names (ibid.: 96). As they became

9 Nihongo Kyōiku Shinkō-kai was a semi-governmental organization established in 1941 by the Kōa-in andthe Ministry of Education, and all the board members were from these two organs. The goals of theorganization were promotion of Japanese language education, compilation of Japanese textbooks andmanuals, training of Japanese language instructors, publication of journals, hosting of meetings andsponsoring of conferences to promote Japanese language education, etc. (Kawamura: 228-30).

34

“Japanese,” they began to study with Japanese children at primary schools and all the

kyōikujo were closed except for the one in Shisuka (ibid.: 96).

Similar to the administrative ministry for Hokkaidō, Hokkaidōchō (北海道廰),

the Karafutochō enforced “assimilation policy” and Japanese language education on

Ainu, Uilta (Orok), and Nivkh (Gilyak) people (Kawamura: 216). Except for a few

Western missionaries in Hokkaidō, there was no one who paid respect to the indigenous

language and culture, and the researchers who studied their religion, language, and

culture were merely concerned with preserving them as museum artifacts (ibid.: 216).

Kindaichi Kyōsuke studied Ainu culture to “discover” the genealogical origins of kokugo

(Yasuda, 2008: 54). Yasuda remarked that, without the epic poetry yukar, the Ainu

culture as well as its language had no value to Kindaichi Kyōsuke and the department of

linguistics at Tokyo Imperial University. Thus, Kindaichi commented that mastering the

language by imitating what Ainu spoke today was not only boring but also useless (ibid.:

65).

3.3.2 Kwangtung province and the surrounding areas of the Manchurian Railway

Company (1905-1945)

When Japanese first began to educate locals in China in Kwangtung province,

they used a Russian-Chinese school (露清学校) building to open the Kinshū Nankin

Shoin (金州南京書院; Jinzhou Nanjing Academy) in 1904. The director of the school

was Iwama Tokuya, and upon the opening of the school, all curriculum design, etc., was

in his hands. Iwama was a graduate of the Tōa Dōbun Shoin, and after his graduation he

made great efforts in the education of the Chinese. He put emphasis on Chinese language

35

education, rather than on Japanese, thus gaining respect from the locals (Tani, 2006: 169-

70). Since the Kwangtung province was a leased territory, the administrative ministry for

the Kwangtung province, the Kantōchō (関東廰), could not enforce Japanese school

education on the locals and therefore the number of students enrolled in their schools

remained small. Their curriculum set the hours of Japanese language classes at half that

of Chinese language classes. And the language of instruction was Mandarin except for

the Japanese language class (ibid.: 170-1). Control over the school system was strict in

Kwangtung, whereas in the surrounding areas of the Manchurian Railway Company it

was relatively lax and the Chinese side ran most of the schools in the region (ibid.: 171).

3.3.3 The island mandates in the Pacific (Micronesia) (1914-1945)

The Micronesian islands in the Pacific, such as the Northern Mariana Islands, the

Chuuk Islands (Truk Islands), Palau, Pohnpei, Yap, Jaluit, etc., were formerly under

Spanish and later German control, but during WWI, the Japanese army occupied these

Micronesian islands as of 1914; they subsequently became territories under the mandate

of Japan following a decision of the League of Nations (LON) in 1920. Even after

Japan’s withdrawal from the LON in 1933 following the establishment of Manchukuo,

Japan remained in the area, and Japanese language education – called “kokugo education”

just like in other colonies – continued for about thirty years until 1945 (Tani, 2000: 88).

Generally speaking, owing to their long history of hostile colonization by Spain and

Germany, the residents of the islands did not show much resistance toward Japanese

occupation or language education, unlike the cases in Taiwan and Korea (ibid.: 121).

36

The Japanese education system of the region was broadly amended three times.

From 1914 to 1918, the military was in charge of education; although they tried to recruit

Japanese teachers from Japan, due to the lack of applicants, Japanese Navy officers

taught local children at school. From 1918 to 1922, there were enough teachers from

Japan to avoid Navy officers teaching in schools. In 1922, the Nan’yōchō was

established and they began to organize the school system (Tani, 2006: 131). Upon the

Nan’yōchō’s request, Ashida Enosuke (1873-1951) compiled a textbook in 1925, which

adopted phonetic writing with katakana and only a few Chinese characters as well as

colloquial speech style. Ashida explains that the reason for going beyond what was

taking place inside Japan in terms of language reform was that a pioneer enterprise was a

very risky one; what made him take such a risk was not for the sake of kokugo or himself,

but for the convenience of the learners (ibid.: 134-5).

When the Japanese first arrived on the islands, Matsuoka Shizuo (1878-1936), an

elite naval officer and younger brother of Yanagida Kunio, came to the islands as a

colonizer and did research on the Micronesian languages (Kawamura: 28). As a

researcher of Micronesian languages, which had no writing system, he put an emphasis

on spoken language in the case of Japanese language education. This phonetic

understanding of language was shared with his older brother, Yanagida Kunio (1875-

1962), who also played an important role in Japan’s Micronesian occupation (ibid.: 31).

He was an elite bureaucrat and, at that time, was assigned as a committee member of the

League of Nations mandate, with a recommendation by Nitobe Inazō (1862-1933), No. 2

at the LON at the time. In a report to the LON, Yanagida criticized the assimilation

policy of the Nan’yōchō, saying, “the common language must be chosen from the local

37

languages, and forcing the locals to memorize all the names of emperors is simply

nonsense” (ibid.: 33-4). Nonetheless, this report was made in English outside Japan,

whereas he never gave such opinions toward a domestic audience and kept talking about

kokugo ideology (ibid.: 35)10. Matsuoka, in his book about the Micronesian languages,

clearly states, “this book in no way intends to contribute to the spread or development of

the Micronesian languages,” which signifies his intention for assimilation and

colonization. Only people with such intentions devoted themselves to studying the

languages of the colonized, which had a negative impact on Japan’s colonial rule overall

(Kawamura: 46).

3.3.4 Manchukuo (1932-1945)

The number of “national languages” in Manchukuo seems uncertain because the

law never defined which languages were to be spoken under what circumstances.

Depending on whom you asked, some said that the national languages were Japanese,

“Manchu” (here it practically means Mandarin rather than Manchu), and Mongolian,

while others said only Japanese and “Manchu” (Kawamura: 77). Moreover, depending

on the regions inside Manchukuo, the languages to be taught at high school (kokumin

10 After his retirement, he started conducting folklore research. His folklore studies took shape as a critiqueof modernity as well as of governmental policies. He shed light on the daily life of “lay people” and onnegative aspects of capitalist society. Nevertheless, Lee argues that the reason why Yanagida criticizedmodern Japan, including the establishment of “standard Japanese,” was that modernity meant thedestruction of “Japanese tradition” inherited from generation to generation among “lay people” (Lee, 2009:82). His view resembles that of Ogura Shinpei in colonial Korea – what language to speak must be chosenvoluntarily by the speaker. In Ogura’s case (Yasuda, 1999), it meant that Koreans living in the countrysideand having no need to communicate in Japanese need not learn to speak in Japanese; on the other hand, inYanagida’s case, the opposition was between dialects and metropolitan standards. He believed that thestandardization process of the language would occur naturally without any policies. In his opinion, theJapanese language originally had one speech style in the centre where the Japanese emperor was, but aspeople spread in all the directions, regional variety resulted; thus, if people moved to the centre and learnthe language, the opposite phenomenon would eventually take place (ibid.: 116-7). His severe anti-governmental criticism concerning the standardization of kokugo was supported by one variety of kokugoideology and kokutai (national polity) nationalism (ibid.: 119).

38

kōtō gakkō国民高等学校) varied; under the regulations of the school law, in prefecture-

administrative districts (kensei shikō chiiki県制施行地域), it was Japanese and

“Manchu,” in banner-administrative districts (kisei shikō chiiki旗制施行地域), Japanese

and Mongolian, in the Russian residential district, Japanese and Russian, and so forth

(ibid.: 79). The Japanese were encouraged to learn “Manchu,” whereas the “Manchus”

were encouraged to study Japanese. Starting from 1936, the government sponsored

language proficiency exams and gave bonuses to those who passed the exams (ibid.: 79).

Although the system looked like that of a multiethnic and multilingual empire, it was

supported by the strong intention of the Japanese authorities to spread Japanese in the

region. Also, Manshū-gana (Manchu kana, slightly modified katakana) was established

as a national script by the Manchukuo authority to transcribe all the languages of the

region. This was greatly encouraging for the advocates of katakana as a national script in

Japan, where the mixed style of Chinese characters and hiragana was dominant;

however, their hopes soon disappeared together with Manchukuo (ibid.: 86).

Manchukuo was also a land of opportunity for many Koreans. Korean

newspapers in the 1930s wrote of Manchukuo as an escape valve from a crowded Korea,

and the number of immigrants between 1932 and 1940 was estimated to be approximately

720,000 (Han: 179). Some Koreans became low-ranking policemen. Due to the

historical background that Korea had been a vassal state of China for long, Koreans

received unpleasant treatment at the hands of Chinese; hence, some immigrants asked the

Korean Government-General for permission to present themselves with Japanese names

in Manchukuo (Tani, 2006: 123). Many who later became leaders in many fields of

South and North Korea spent their youths there, such as Park Chung Hee, who was an

39

officer in the Manchukuo Army, Ch’oe Kyuha, who had a temporary position in the

Manchukuo government, Chun Doo Hwan, who also crossed the border with his family

for a better life, and Kim Il Sung, who was a cadre of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United

Army; interestingly, Park was on the opposite Japanese side in Manchukuo (ibid.: 179-8).

Han argues that Manchukuo became a model for the Korean states after liberation, as

Korean officers of the Manchukuo Army later formed the core of the South Korean Army

and supported Park’s coup in 1961. They had witnessed the revolt of the Kwangtung

Army against Tokyo (the Manchurian Incident), state-led industrialization, bandit

suppression, and mass mobilization, all of which became hallmarks of Park’s regime

(ibid.: 180).

3.3.5 Occupied areas in North and Central China (1938-1945)

With regard to Japanese language education in China, the Twenty-One Demands

in 1915 – a set of demands made by Japan on the Republic of China – caused a temporary

decline; however, in the early 1920s, rivaling the U.S. and Britain, both of which founded

universities near Beijing and started to recruit promising students to their universities as

well as to their home countries, Japan launched a new education program for Chinese

students (Tani, 2006: 177). With financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

the Tōa Dōbunkai established three schools in China between 1920 and 1922.

Nonetheless, due to the frequent clashes between the Japanese and Chinese armies, the

schools were emptied as many students participated in the anti-Japanese demonstrations

and soon closed when the Manchurian Incident broke out in 1932 (ibid.: 177-9).

40

After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Japan occupied major

cities in North and Central China by the end of the year. From 1938, the Kōa-in (East

Asia Development Board,興亜院) in cooperation with the Ministry of Education dealt

with Japanese language education policy, and from 1941 it was succeeded by the

Nihongo Kyōiku Shinkō-kai (Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language

Education) (ibid.: 179). According to the investigation report compiled by the Kōa-in in

1941, people were obliged to learn Japanese not only at schools but also at companies

and factories. The report categorized the prefectures into four levels of Japanese

language proficiency; 1) prefectures which had teachers and schools of good quality,

often related to Buddhist sects such as Honganji (本願寺), Tenrikyō (天理教), and

Nichirenshū (日蓮宗)11, 2) prefectures where interpreters, if not school teachers, taught

Japanese, and teachers themselves were not fluent in the language, with only three-to-six-

months of Japanese language training, 3) prefectures where police guards taught at school

when they were off duty, 4) prefectures with no Japanese education. Since those who had

good command of Japanese were employed in the government or at railroad companies,

the quality of the teachers remained poor, which resulted in low quality in education in

general (ibid.: 180-1).

In Central China, even though in 1940 Japan and the Wang Jingwei government

concluded an anti-communist treaty which featured further bilateral cooperation in

military and economic matters, training schools for Japanese language instructors for

primary schools were shut down; in addition, the hours of Japanese instruction were cut

11 For further information on the subject, cf. Ketelaar, James Edward. 1990. Of heretics and martyrs inMeiji Japan: Buddhism and its persecution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. See alsoKim, Hwansoo. 2007. Strategic Alliances: The Complex Relationship between Japanese and KoreanBuddhism, 1877-1912. PhD dissertation, Harvard University.

41

in school curricula, whereas hours of English instruction increased (ibid.: 184). Possible

reasons for this were the lack of Japanese population in the region, the uncertainty of

Japan’s further development in the region, and the high cultural level of the region due to

the existence of many foreign interests. Besides, compared to Japanese, the cultural

capital of English language learning was enormous, and the quality of textbooks as well

as instructors was far better than those for Japanese (ibid.: 184). Although the Kōa-in and

the Ministry of Education made efforts to propagate Japanese in the region, Japanese

language education in the occupied territories in China remained unsuccessful.

In the regions around Inner Mongolia, the quest for independence among Mongol

residents grew after the establishment of Manchukuo. In 1936, they established the

Mengjiang United Autonomous Government (1936-1945), backed by the Kwangtung

Army (ibid.: 185). Similar to Manchukuo, the Japanese advisors as well as the army and

Kōa-in controlled this new puppet government (ibid.: 185). There were around 1600

schools in the region with very few female students. Japanese language education in the

region seems to have been implemented smoothly; nonetheless, obstacles were the lack of

Japanese instructors and textbooks as well as the strong anti-Japanese campaign by the

Chinese Communist Party (ibid.:185-6). Tani cites Shi Gang (1993)’s opinion that

because Mongolia is located between Russia and China, Japan took advantage of its

unstable position in the region as well as of the people’s desire for independence (ibid.:

186-7).

42

3.3.6 The Philippines (1942-1945)

Before the arrival of Japan, the Philippines were a colony of Spain for about three

hundred years from the sixteenth century and of the U.S. from 1898. Unlike Spain,

which provided limited access to education among the locals, the U.S. made great efforts

to provide education for Filipinos (Tani, 2000: 175). Despite the deterioration of public

security amid the takeover, Japan resumed the local school system and made Japanese a

mandatory subject (ibid.: 178). Although both Japanese and Tagalog were set to be the

official languages, the use of English was also allowed “for the time being;” upon the

strong request of the Spanish government to make Spanish an official language, Spanish

was allowed in public, too (ibid.: 178).

Before the Japanese occupation took place, Japanese language education was

conducted on a limited scale by Japanese religious groups such as Honganji (本願寺) in

Manila and by Japanese Protestant churches (ibid.: 177). In 1942, considering the large

population of Catholics in Philippines, Japan sent Japanese Catholic abbesses and their

followers, as well as licensed English teachers, to the Philippines to teach Japanese to

Filipinos (ibid.: 182-3). After Japan started the war against Britain and the U.S., Japanese

engaged in English-related business such as film importing companies and interpreting

were discriminated against within local Japanese society (ibid.: 183-4). Hence, those

people who came to the Philippines not only from the Japanese archipelago, but also from

Korea and Manchuria, were motivated to teach Filipinos. As social subalterns of the time,

these Japanese held a strong anti-Japanese government sentiment and showed no

enthusiasm to promote Japan’s assimilation policy. In the Philippines, English was often

used in the classrooms not only to teach Japanese but also to teach other subjects (ibid.:

43

22). Japanese instructors in the Philippines maintained a tight teaching network and often

held workshops or study groups to learn and improve their pedagogical skills – something

that never occurred in the other overseas territories (ibid.: 190).

Thanks to the pedagogical enthusiasm of both the instructors and the students, as

well as owing to the well-established educational infrastructure previously set up by the

U.S., Japanese language education in Philippines had the best quality among the areas

occupied by the Japanese after 1941 (ibid.: 195). Nevertheless, since the U.S. had

promised the Filipinos independence by 1946, the Japanese were thought of as

unwelcome intruders, a fact that strengthened the locals’ emotional dependency on the

U.S. (ibid.: 193, 195). With no motivation to learn Japanese among Filipinos, Japanese

language education, despite its high quality, proved to be a failure in the long run (ibid.:

195).

3.3.7 Malaya and Singapore (1942-1945)

In Malaya, the population consisted of Chinese ethnicities (45%), Malays (40%),

and Indians (10%), while in Singapore, Chinese comprised 80% and Malays 10% (ibid.:

130-1). Anti-Japanese sentiment was strong among the ethnic Chinese groups in these

regions. After the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, many of the

Chinese supported their home country financially. As the Japanese forces were aware of

this fact, they massacred thousands of locals after the beginning of the occupation (Tani,

2000: 131). They prohibited the use of Mandarin and English and made an order to

switch all street signs and notices into Japanese. Nevertheless, the Japanese mayor of

44

Singapore regarded this request from the military as unrealistic and postponed the

implementation of the order indefinitely (ibid.: 132).

After public security had been restored, the military government resumed the

school system; in Malaya and Singapore, the primary schools were divided into four

kinds – Malay schools, Chinese schools, Indian schools, and Japanese schools

(remodeled English schools) (ibid.: 134). The languages that were allowed inside the

schools were limited to Japanese, Malay, and Tamil (ibid.: 135; Watanabe: 78). However,

English and Mandarin were deeply rooted in society and in addition, the schools lacked

both Japanese teaching materials and Japanese instructors. Therefore, the military

government soon loosened the prohibition and permitted the use of Mandarin temporarily

(Tani: 150; Watanabe: 81, 106).

Jinbo Kōtarō, a poet, Ibuse Masuji, a writer, and Nakajima Kenzō, a scholar of

French literature, were sent to Singapore as members of the military propaganda team

(senden-han宣伝班) (Kawamura: 79). According to Jinbo, Nakajima worked

enthusiastically for the promotion of Japanese language education, and Jinbo himself

remarked, “loving Japanese language is not only equal to loving Japan but also to

becoming a Japanese citizen” (ibid.: 86, 97). This logic interrelating language, culture,

and ethnicity was nonsense to people living in multiethnic and multilingual areas like

Singapore, and such a stance made Japanese language education appear self-righteous

and distorted (ibid.: 97-8).

Generally speaking, the school system in Malaya and Singapore remained

unchanged, except for the switch from English to Japanese (Watanabe: 108-9). The

textbooks as well as instructors in the Chinese schools came mostly from Mainland China

45

and regardless of whether the subject was history, geography, or Mandarin, the class

materials contained a great deal of patriotic statements and anti-foreign spirit (ibid.: 113).

3.3.8 Indonesia (1942-1945)

When Japan occupied Indonesia, its main focus was to obtain abundant natural

resources. On the other hand, Indonesians regarded the Japanese invasion as a great

opportunity to achieve independence from the 350-year-old Dutch colonial rule (Tani,

2000: 152). In political and military aspects, Indonesians were oppressed by the Dutch,

whereas in the sphere of business, they were oppressed by the ethnic Chinese groups

(ibid.: 153). In 1942, when Japan occupied Java, the Japanese released political offenders

such as Sukarno (1901-1970) and Mohammad Hatta (1902-1980), who had been

imprisoned under Dutch rule, and appointed them to military positions (Tani, 2006: 195).

Although Japan originally did not intend to give the Indonesians independence, with the

worsening of the war situation, they had decided to help Indonesians with preparing for

future independence through such steps as the formation of an Indonesian volunteer army

(PETA; later the Indonesian national army) which motivated locals to learn Japanese and

to work for the Japanese (Tani, 2000: 153).

Unlike the Netherlands, which limited locals’ access to education and physical

training, Japan obliged Indonesians to go to school (the tuition was usually free or very

inexpensive) and to learn Japanese (ibid.: 158, 171). The literacy rate in the region was

4% in 1930, one of the lowest in Southeast Asia at that time (Tani, 2006: 197). The

military propaganda team was tasked with promoting local education. Ōe Kenji (1905-

1987), a famous writer, said that on the day of the opening of his school, so many

46

applicants flooded to the reception desk that the fence fell under the pressure and some

got injured (Tani, 2006: 196).

Writing journalist reports and teaching Japanese at school, Ōe had conceived an

idea of a pidgin language to be the language of the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity

Sphere” (Kawamura: 122). Amongst the intellectuals who served in the military

propaganda team and became involved with the local education of the Japanese language,

there were two types: one was like that of Hino Ashihei (1907-1960), who lamented the

situation of “disordered Japanese,” while the other was like that of Ōe, who saw the

efficacy of mixed languages and conceived a formation of the language of the “Greater

East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” by mixing Japanese and the local languages, like a

creole language or pidgin language (ibid.: 123). Satō Haruo (1892-1964), a famous

writer who traveled to Southerneast Asia to observe Japanese language education among

the locals, commented that “since the Meiji era, Japanese has absorbed many foreign

terms and its structure has also become very confusing. If this current Japanese was well-

organized and well-structured, it would be disturbing, but as it has been quite unstable,

we should let it absorb some new elements until it naturally stabilizes itself” (ibid.: 128).

Needless to say, his conception as well as Ōe’s were not accepted by the official kokugo

discourse, in which kokugo should never be confused or mixed with other languages but

always remain “pure and just” (ibid.: 129).

In the low literacy areas, government propaganda through movies and radio was

found effective: the radio tower was called the “Talking Tree” by the locals and attracted

a large audience (Tani, 2000: 163). The data shows that the number of applicants for

Japanese language schools was far beyond their maximum capacity. The number of

47

schools was estimated to be about 2,211 and the number of students about 122,198 (Tani,

2006: 200). This implies that learning Japanese enabled locals to find jobs or get

promotions in their workplace (Tani, 2000: 172). In Indonesia, although there were

eventual plans for monolingual Japanese education, the local authorities temporarily

allowed schools to teach Japanese in Malay and other local languages. Nonetheless, in

reality, as instructors from Japan knew only the basics of the Malay language, they ended

up teaching entirely in Japanese from the outset (ibid.: 22-3).

Due to the assimilation policy, Japanese education produced an increase in the

number of Indonesians volunteering for suicide attacks (ibid.: 172). Modeling their

actions upon the suicide attacks of the Japanese forces, not only men but also women in

Indonesia aroused patriotic sentiments for their nation, which later led to suicide

bombings against the Dutch during the independence war against the Netherlands (ibid.:

173). In Burma, where Japanese language education was also accepted smoothly by the

locals, the number of Japanese language learners decreased as Japan started to show signs

of defeat in WWII, but in Indonesia (perhaps owing to the fact that their land did not

become a battlefield), except for Chinese ethnic groups and Eurasian residents, the

eagerness to absorb knowledge and techniques through Japanese language in preparation

for future independence never declined (ibid.: 173).

3.3.9 Burma (1942-1945)

Lastly, in Burma, unlike the other overseas territories of Japan, the Japanese

language was not a mandatory subject in local schools. Instead, Japan separately

established Japanese language schools to promote Japanese in Burma (ibid.: 204). Be it

48

officially or otherwise, the use of English was also allowed temporarily. Moreover, one

intriguing feature salient during the occupation of Burma was that Buddhist monks, who

held special prestige in Burmese society, played a significant role in promoting Japanese

language education. With a strong anti-British sentiment, monks were motivated to

eliminate English education by replacing it with Japanese. The difference in religious

customs triggered antipathy for the Japanese in Malaya and Indonesia because the

Japanese were ignorant about the Muslim lifestyle. But religious troubles were much less

frequent in Burma, where people shared a common Buddhist culture with Japan (ibid.:

208).

Among the military occupied areas, Japanese language education in Burma was

often considered to be relatively successful, owing to the strong anti-British sentiment

before the arrival of Japan (ibid.: 207). Unlike in the Philippines, whose future

independence had been promised as early as 1934, Burma had been absorbed into a part

of India under British control. In a situation like this, the Japanese troops, who did not

regard Burma as strategically important and promised the Burmese future independence,

were temporarily welcomed as a “liberation army.” The Japanese put an emphasis on

liberation from British colonialism in order to elicit cooperation from the locals to

advance the war cause (Tani, 2006: 204). It is well known that the thirty-six soldiers

headed by Aung San (1915-1947) were associated with the Japanese military in hopes of

achieving early independence. In 1943, Burma became an independent nation with Ba

Maw (1893-1977), who had been imprisoned as a nationalist under British rule, as its

head and Aung San became the head of the Burmese military (ibid.: 205). As in

Indonesia, inspired by Japanese kamikaze attacks, Burmese youths followed the same

49

example (ibid.: 210). However, such thoughts triggered an unexpected backlash against

the Japanese. On March 27, 1945, the Burmese army led by Aung San revolted. As

Japan started to show signs of defeat in WWII, whether they had noticed Japan’s

intention to stay in power in Burma or not, they had contacted the British army, which

they had previously expelled with Japanese help, and rose up in an “anti-Japanese, anti-

Fascist” strike (Kawamura: 121).

3.4 Summary – status of nihongo and other languages in the sphere

In summary, the local response to Japanese language education in the military

occupied areas varied greatly depending on the local governments’ policy-making and on

the relationship between the locals and the former colonizers. In Indonesia and Burma,

the education and ethnic identity acquired through the Japanese language during the

occupation helped Indonesians and Burmese to later achieve independence from their

colonizers. On the other hand, in the Philippines, Malaya, and Singapore, people harbored

anti-Japanese sentiments and wished for the temporary return of their former colonizers.

Prior to the Japanese occupation, such local languages as Tagalog and Malay tended to be

ignored, compared to the languages of the colonizers and Mandarin. Even for a short

period of time, giving those languages the status of official language set the stage for a

unified national language movement as well as for the construction of ethnic and national

identities.

Official languages and languages of school instruction were decided arbitrarily by

the local governments and restrictions were often loosened “for the time being” owing to

the urgent demands of warfare. After all, the Japanese occupation in the above areas

50

lasted only three and a half years. Nonetheless, if it had lasted longer, the multilingual

situation would eventually have created a serious problem for “the Greater East Asia Co-

Prosperity Sphere.” Hoshina Kōichi, a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, was

greatly alarmed by this multilingual situation because he was well aware of the fact that

the Austro-Hungarian Empire had disintegrated in part due to its multiplicity of

ethnicities and languages (Lee: 183). As a solution to prevent the multilingual empire

from disintegrating, he proposed the concept of kokka-go, “state language”

(Staatssprache12).

“State language” was a legal concept. The state language controlled language

usage in the following four areas – government services, education, the courts, and the

military – and under the state language, local languages (Landessprache) used in each

province and ethnic languages (Volkssprache/Stammsprache) spoken in each ethnic

group were positioned in a vertical hierarchy. According to Hoshina, the state language

was to be superior to local or ethnic languages, while local languages could still be

official languages used in provincial services and provincial schools (Lee: 184).

While the concept was proposed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in order to solve

the newly-surfaced political language problems there, Hoshina proposed this concept in

order to prevent such problems from surfacing, by giving legal status to nihongo to secure

its position on top of the other languages spoken in the fully multilingual empire. From

observing the Austro-Hungarian case, he predicted that as long as a nation contained

different ethnic groups, people would eventually claim their own language rights in order

to gain higher status in the society, and the resistance of the ruled could cause dreadful

12 The term was first used in a speech in the Austrian Congress of 1848 and again in 1880 by acongressman of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Congress (Lee: 185).

51

results for the ruling system (ibid.: 191). Nonetheless, the concept of kokugo, which

itself was overly politicized, hindered this new political concept – the state language –

from entering into play. At that time, not only the ultranationalistic conservatives but

also Hoshina’s old friend, Andō Masatsugu, who had also studied under Ueda, opposed

the idea of the state language. Andō was afraid that confining Japanese to the political

field alone would endanger the authority of kokugo, saying that “authorizing the status of

kokugo by the nation would rather demarcate the influence of kokugo…” (ibid.: 190).

Neither the Great Japanese Empire nor the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity

Sphere lasted long enough for such political language problems to surface. Perceiving

rivalry from the former Western colonizers, the Japanese local governments in Southeast

Asia tried to appeal to the locals by allowing indigenous languages to enjoy official

status. Yet even under the disguise of nihongo, which was supposed to co-exist with

other languages, it was always the concept of kokugo that hindered any attempts at

political legislation reforms.

3.5 Conclusions

One of the characteristic features of modern Japanese is that the formation of

kokugo – a canonical tool of nation-state ideology – and Japanese expansion in Asia took

place almost simultaneously (Oguma: 57). The formation of Japanese linguistic unity

advanced side-by-side with colonial expansion in Asia. Ueda Kazutoshi connected the

concepts of nation and national language in 1894, and set up a committee to standardize

the language in 1902, seven years after Japan had occupied Taiwan (Miura: 11). Thus,

Japan began its colonial enterprise without waiting for a “standardized kokugo” and

52

kokugo was exported and enforced on Asia without any academic or political preparation.

The brutality that attended such a disordered assimilation policy was one of the

characteristics of Japanese colonial rule, as exemplified in the assimilation policy of

kōminka (the making of imperial subjects) and sōshi kaimei (Japanese renamings) (Miura:

11). Although kokugo language proficiency was the scale used to measure colonial

subjects’ degree of “civilization” as well as their loyalty to the Japanese nation, the

colonized people in the overseas colonies and military occupied areas in Asia, as well

Ryūkyūans and Ainus who spoke Japanese “dialects,” could never become a part of the

closed concept of kokugo ideology with regard to imperial bloodline (Miura: 12; Oguma

61). The “Japanese spirit” was only conveyed through kokugo – the nation’s “blood” –

and any modification to this national language was considered to be a breach of the

national polity (kokutai), which made it extremely difficult to carry out language reforms

and policies. After all, it was the concept of kokugo itself that rejected any academic

reforms or structural refinements along with its political expansion into the pan-Asian

sphere.

53

4. Nationalism and pan-Asianism in linguistic discourse

As I have examined the macro-level cases under the Japanese colonial enterprise

in the previous chapters, I shall now turn to my study of the language manuals for

Japanese. Though my main focus is on Korean language manuals, the wartime language

manuals frequently cover not only Japanese and Korean, but also other languages

including English, Mandarin, and Russian. Thus, I will sometimes refer to the other

languages in addition to Korean in order to observe a multilayered discourse on the target

languages as well as on the Japanese language itself.

The language manuals exemplify what I have shown in the previous chapters –

national and colonial linguistics discourse formation in tandem with the linguistic

standardization process. Although my primary interest is to examine the bottom-up

national / colonial discourse from the perspective of soldiers, the target readers of

language manuals often overlap, e.g., one manual could be written for soldiers as well as

global businessmen or settlers in Korea as well as public servants engaged in bureaucratic

work in Korea. Thus, I have given priority in my examination to those manuals which

contain a chapter containing terms like “military” or “warfare.” As Japan at that time had

a military conscription system, every man – whether he was a business person or public

servant – was supposed to enter the military and go to war if such occurred; thus,

“military” and “warfare” were rather ubiquitous subjects, much more so than they are

presently, and they were indeed included in many language manuals. It is in this climate

that we can observe the creation of language manuals for Japanese soldiers and

concentrate on the material found in the manual prefaces and contents. A further

development of my hypothesis is that as we proceed chronologically in our examination

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of the manuals we see on the one hand a consolidation of the Japanese language toward a

standardized form at the turn of the twentieth century, and on the other hand, shifts in the

paradigmatic view of the colonial others, ranging from “cautious engagement” to

“enlightened leadership” and finally toward a radicalized stance, applying Benner’s

framework.

In this chapter, I first introduce the four-pattern theory of national thinking

presented in Erica Benner (2006) as the basic framework for my analysis of

developments in colonial discourse in the language manuals. Then I contextualize the

background against which the language manuals were written and cover the history of

pan-Asianist frameworks, discursive features of which figured prominently in the

language manuals.

4.1 Methodology: Erica Benner’s four patterns of national thinking

Japanese nation-builders of the late nineteenth century strove to adopt the

measures taken in modernizing Europe in order to create a nation, namely – mass military

conscription and mass education. Such steps would help to forge a national unity across

regions and social strata unattainable by pre-modern models of sovereignty. With the

abolition of feudal fiefs and the caste system it became possible to attain a territorial unity

upon which the new legal system and biopolitics could be implemented, and in which a

national language could be distilled. Nation-building never occurs in isolation: it needs

an outsider to position oneself against, i.e., Japan as a new nation had to look at its

neighbors to delineate its own borders and cultural uniqueness. Language manuals are a

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rich site for examination of both the standardization of language and its positioning vis-à-

vis the Other’s, i.e., the enemy nations’ languages, took place.

To observe the developments of colonial discourse in language manuals for

Japanese soldiers, I propose to use the four-pattern theory of national thinking presented

in Erica Benner (2006) as the basic framework for my analysis. The four patterns are:

1. Defensive Consolidation

2. Cautious Engagement

3. Enlightened International Leadership

4. Radicalization

The first pattern gives mainly defensive reasons for strengthening national boundaries

and identities… Seeing the international environment as hostile and beyond their direct

control, authors wrote on behalf of their countries that vulnerable polities could only hope

to defend themselves through radical cultural reform... The second pattern of national

thinking, instead of trying to compensate for weakness by cultivating ethnic national

identities, advocates cautious engagement with the dominant powers. Arguments of this

type are made on behalf of countries which, in the judgment of a given author, had fair

chances of becoming major players if they undertook forms aimed at meeting the

standards of Great Power membership – “modernization” or “civilization.” In contrast to

the first two patterns, the third perceives the dominant international norms and practices

as unthreatening and subject to rational control… Authors advocate a benign, self-assured

nationalism based on a just internal constitution on the one hand, and enlightened

international leadership on the other… The fourth pattern of national thinking develops

with the radicalization of any of the first three. Radical national doctrines can take many

forms, but all involve perceptions of extreme and imminent threats to a nation’s survival

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or standing… In the late nineteenth century, the birth of radical nationalism was fuelled

by the popular idea that nations corresponded to biological “races,” which in turn formed

a natural hierarchy of populations more and less fit to lead the others... Far from being

simply a radicalized version of defensive ethnocentrism or authoritarianism, racial

thinking and radical national assertion could grow just as easily out of the enlightened

leadership pattern if its proponents perceived international changes as threatening their

status… [I]n any country, shifting perceptions of international pressures may lead

previously dominant strands of national doctrine to give way to very different forms.

Most of a country’s national thinkers might express a sense of vulnerability and call for

defensive “closure” in one period, then move toward cautious engagement or enlightened

leadership at a later phase, as perceptions of international pressures become less fraught.

(Benner: 14-17)

Although there cannot be a clear-cut periodization based on the above four

patterns of national thinking, we can nonetheless identify the broad-spectrum temporal

correspondences as to when a particular pattern gains mediatic and political prominence

in the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries in Japan. Thus the “defensive

period” would span from 1868 to 1874 (Taiwan Expedition台湾出兵). The “cautious

engagement period” would follow: 1874-1905. Defeating Russia in the Russo-Japanese

War (1904-5) brought on an overall sentiment among most Japanese that Japan was now

a fully civilized nation state capable of international leadership. Hence, the third period:

1905-1931. The subsequent encroachment on China in 1931 initiated by the Japanese

military without parliamentary approval opened the “radicalization period” that lasted

until Japan’s defeat in WWII.

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In my treatment of language manuals for Japanese soldiers I shall seek the

correspondences between the proposed periodization and the contents of prefaces and

vocabulary, thus hypothesizing that it will be possible to see both the historical trends

reflected in the manuals under examination as well as individual nationalistic inclinations

of the authors.

4.2 Japan’s nation-building and soldiers’ encounters with the ‘Other’

Before going into the language manuals, let me briefly summarize a major shift in

the linguistic situation in Japan from the Edo (1603-1868) to the Meiji era (1868-1912).

“From the time that Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun around 1600 until the Tokugawa

shogunate collapsed in the middle of the nineteenth century, each of [Japan’s feudal]

political divisions drifted in a different linguistic direction. Domain boundaries became

linguistic boundaries” (Ramsey: 87) due to the difficulty of travel beyond the domains

under strict control of the central authority in Edo. “In the early nineteenth century, the

differences separating Japanese ‘dialects’ more closely resembled the linguistic

differences separating Chinese dialects” (ibid.). With the coming of the Meiji

Restoration (1867-8) this issue became crucial to the policies of the nation-builders.

Accounts of that period contain stories of confusion, incomprehension, misunderstanding,

and chaos. Here is a well-known (though probably apocryphal) anecdote often repeated

in the historical literature to illustrate the kind of frustration that arose:

In 1868, in the turmoil of the Boshin civil war, troops from Yamaguchi and

Kagoshima in the southwest were dispatched in an expeditionary force to Tohoku.

When these soldiers reached their destination and tried to talk to the people of the

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area, they discovered that communication was impossible. Not one among them

knew how to speak the local language. The situation became desperate. The

army needed to be supplied, directions needed to be worked out, and for both

purposes the units needed local help. Finally after many things had been tried,

one especially well educated soldier tried reciting lines from the repertory of Noh

drama, from which he knew expressions such as: “We are in need of rice, can you

be of service?”; “Would you show us the way?”, and the like. As it happened,

there was a man in the area who had studied Noh drama and he was able to act as

an intermediary for the soldiers. (ibid.: 87-88)

Regardless of whether the story is actually true, the unification of language was a

primary building block for modernizing the army and the country’s infrastructure.

Yutaka Yoshida argues that the army had more social pervasiveness than the navy, as the

former was much bigger than the latter, in addition to the fact that the navy depended

heavily on the volunteer system (Yoshida: 18). Regarding the relationship between the

military and society, what one should remember is the historical fact that the military

played a significant role in modernizing social orders (ibid.: 19). Military training

fostered the discipline of time (i.e., the spread of watch wearing), body (e.g., the habit of

wearing shoes, marching, as well as Field Day practices), speech (language

standardization), clothing (military uniforms with hats on short hair), food (meat and

bread), and lifestyle (sitting on chairs and sleeping in beds) among the masses, especially

those living in the countryside.

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Yōko Katō, in her book on the history of the conscription system in Japan, states

that observing the military under conscription system reveals a whole picture of one

country, and that soldiers serve as indices of a country. Canadian diplomat and historian,

E. H. Norman, who was born in Japan in a missionary family, wondered why the polite

Japanese he knew could massacre thousands of people in Nanjing. His answer was that

slaves could become the cruelest agents to force the same burden upon others (Katō: 6).

Since the Meiji Restoration was an absolutist revolution, the “liberated farmers” of a

bourgeois revolution did not exist; nonetheless, the Meiji government adopted a

conscription system similar to that brought into existence after the French Revolution

because recruiting professional soldiers with lifetime employment (as seen in the samurai

class) would have been too costly for Japan at that time (ibid.: 7). Hence, the government

had to rely heavily on “unliberated farmers.” This was a great contradiction that the

Meiji government had to deal with – arming a social class whose enemy class would be a

monarchist government and leaving national defense in their hands; therefore, the

government enforced strict military discipline to prevent a revolt within the military. In

short, miserable farmer soldiers under a strict military code were forced into armed

aggression overseas (ibid.: 7). Nonetheless, the army appealed to the farmers with an

ideology of “egalitarianism” inside the military (i.e., peasant soldiers had the same

opportunities as the former samurai), which helped secure public support (ibid.: 10).

As for language standardization, Yoshida argues that although the exact time

when “army language” (heigo兵語) was formed remains uncertain, it was certainly

absorbed into the speech of the general populace across various social strata. The

phenomenon was witnessed as early as in 1899, as cited in the book, Kokumin hikkei

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rikugun ippan (国民必携陸軍一班, 1899). The “army language” contributed to the

formation of the common language through military experience (Yoshida: 28).

Interestingly enough, the military authorities were also well aware of the impact of army

language within society more broadly (ibid.: 29). The Japanese Army Language

Dictionary (大日本兵語辞典), authored by a lieutenant in 1921, proudly explains in the

section for the term “common language” (tsūyōgo,通用語) that back in earlier days

people from different regions communicated with phrases from famous Noh dramas but

now the army language plays that role as common language. Indeed, one might be

surprised by the amount of familiar vocabulary that we use today to be found in this army

language dictionary (ibid.: 29). Yet the standardization process was never smooth; for

instance, Yoshida gives an anecdote of a new conscript from Osaka who was having a

hard time under a team leader from the northern part of Japan (ibid.: 30).

In the army and elsewhere, the search for a language standard had begun. Ueda

Kazutoshi, an official in the Ministry of Education in the mid-Meiji period, is credited

with the establishment of the National Language Research Committee (now known as the

Council on the National Language), which was at the helm of the national language

policies. Since the beginning of Meiji, the “National Language” (Kokugo国語) had been

a standard course in the school curriculum, but it was primarily geared toward reading

and writing instruction. Hence, the classroom language was the local dialect and not

standardized speech (Ramsey: 96). The term hyōjungo (標準語), “the standard

language,” appeared around 1890, and the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese

War were turning points in the government’s attitude toward the national language. The

government came to consider dialects an impediment to be eradicated (ibid.). “The

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concept of a uniform langue national went back to the French Revolution, when social

radicals introduced the idea that equality before the law could only be obtained by

eliminating the prejudices and inequities that resulted from differences in speech. It was

a strange kind of irony, in which social and ethnic minorities were given legal rights by

ruthlessly extirpating their individual languages and dialects.” (ibid.: 97) “The most

potent stimulus for learning, we are told, is the creation of situations where

communication is only possible through the standard language. The experience of the

military was in this sense very important to young men from the provinces.” (ibid.: 103)

In the developments of the Meiji military system we find confirmation of the

observations above. According to Naoko Shimazu (2006), the Russo-Japanese War was

the defining event in consolidating the identity of the ordinary Japanese as national

subjects (kokumin国民). Examining soldier diaries of that period, Shimazu argues that

there were two kinds of factors that contributed to raising soldiers’ national

consciousness: (1) Japan-internal, i.e., the travels of conscripts across Japan to the war-

dispatching ports, and while doing so, their contacts with local patriotic associations all

over the country, and above all, participation in emotionally-engaged slogan

proclamations, and (2) Japan-external, i.e., the striking contrasts of poverty,

infrastructural malfunction, non-sanitary conditions, and low level of education of locals

(dojin土人) on the continent. Both factors were of crucial influence on the soldiers who

thus underwent a shift in identity from a local/provincial type to a national identity. And

it is this contact with the grassroots on the inside and the foreign locals on the outside that

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shapes the bottom-up national identity discourse I am interested in.13 As the soldiers

expressed in their diaries, this inter-locale bonding inside Japan, contrasted with the

repulsiveness of “the Other” on the war front, was by far a better reason for them to

sacrifice their lives than that of symbolic loyalty to the Japanese empire. “In this crucial

transformation [from a local identity into that of a national subject], not one soldier ever

mentioned the emperor” (ibid.: 52). Indeed, only a few of the language manuals

examined here mention the name of the emperor in the text.

Once on the continent, soldiers often took to comparisons. One soldier, who had

been a school teacher back in Japan before the war, mentioned in his diary how dirty the

Chinese children were. He lamented their inability to benefit from education “like the

Japanese children.” Another soldier was appalled with the ignorance of Koreans as to

“why the Japanese troops were in their country.” Many soldiers shared the sentiment

expressed earlier by Fukuzawa Yukichi in his Escape Asia (Datsu-A脱亜, 1885): “No

wonder Korea was in the state it was in.” They saw the cause of the country’s failure to

raise itself to the international standard in locals’ inability to do things the way Japanese

do. It is hardly surprising that the soldiers did not follow the same line of discourse

addressing the Russians, as the latter were considered to be as civilized as the Japanese.

“Distancing of oneself from the colonial ‘Other’ by denigrating the ‘Other’ as being

‘dirty’ or ‘filthy’ was common in colonial discourse. In some sense, the Japanese soldiers

were simply reflecting the received wisdom of a colonial power in the age of imperialism.

As the oft-rehearsed Japanese official discourse went, the Russo-Japanese War was a

13According to Ichinose (2004), a number of manuals for canned phrases were available at a cheap priceand they were particularly popular during wartime; people read the manuals and adopted the “appropriate”phrases to practice as a soldier or a well-wisher, through which they somewhat convinced themselves of the“appropriateness” of the war. Such discourse continued to be reproduced through such “subjective”grassroots voices. (9-10)

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‘civilized war between civilized peoples’ and the soldiers had subconsciously taken up

the official mantra.” (Shimazu: 61)

Thus, it is in this climate that we examine the proliferation of language manuals

for Japanese soldiers with the issues observed above reflected in the manuals’ prefaces

and contents. The further development of my hypothesis is that as we proceed

chronologically in our examination of the manuals we shall see on the one hand a

consolidation of the Japanese language toward a standardized form at the turn of the

twentieth century, and on the other hand, shifts of paradigmatic outlook upon the colonial

others ranging from “cautious engagement” to “enlightened leadership” and finally

toward a radicalized stance.

4.3 Colonial discourse in the prefaces and contents of language manuals

In this section, I examine the language manuals published between 1882 and

1935, particularly those targeted at Japanese soldiers. Due to the compulsory

conscription system, the army became a “conduit of modernity” for the general public in

many spheres, and language was no exception. Besides, army language manuals are

valuable sources for colloquial language and help us acquire a close reading of the levels

of polite speech and language discourse behind them. Their examination affords us the

tools needed to conduct a careful study of the discursive forces behind their production.

Even though my main focus is on Korean, these language manuals frequently cover not

only Japanese and Korean, but also other languages including English, Mandarin, and

Russian, instantiating a multilayered discourse on the target languages as well as on the

Japanese language itself. Thus, from time to time, I will refer to other languages in

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addition to Korean. Due to restrictions of space and time, I have given priority in my

analysis to manuals which contain a chapter entitled “military” or “warfare.” The

language manuals studied in the thesis are all included in the table at the end.

The following section focuses on the manual prefaces to examine the reasons for

their production and how they appealed to their contemporary audience, together with an

examination of the manuals’ formats and structures. Then in the following section, I look

into manual contents to examine the phraseology that the authors thought their

contemporary readers would need to use in the target languages.

4.3.1 Analysis of the prefaces

In this section, I have divided the exposition into three sub-sections: ca. the Sino-

Japanese War (1880-1899), ca. the Russo-Japanese War (1900-1910), and post-

annexation of Korea (1911-1945) to examine the shifts in the national thinking pattern.

4.3.1.1 Early Meiji period: 1880-1899 – the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5)

The shift [from the “old patriotism” of reactionary ethnic self-assertion to the new patriotism

of “Enlightenment” times] involved both negative and positive assessments of international

pressures. On the negative side, like the Federalists and Hegel, Japanese authors saw

engagement with foreign intruders as a matter of regrettable necessity. A weak country like

Japan simply had no choice but to learn the rules of the Western international game, or face

complete humiliation. More positively, once the necessity of engagement had been

embraced, Japan would be able to benefit from Western borrowings, especially from norms

of national statehood and civilization. The liberal thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi [in his writing]

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underscored the symbiotic relationship between these negative and positive aspects of

nation-building. (Benner: 23)

According to Sung (2010), until the early Meiji 20s (1887-1897), the purpose of

the publication of Korean language manuals remained geared toward diplomatic relations

and trade. In Meiji 27 (1894), the year the Sino-Japanese War broke out, many manuals

(seventeen on her list) written specifically for soldiers were published (ibid.: 14). Some

manuals included the Declaration of War.

The author of Nichi kan ei sangoku taiwa (日韓英三國對話, 1892) says in the

book’s preface that “the structures and sentences of previously published manuals are

old-fashioned and too simple for commercial use; thus I have borrowed the structures

from Western conversational manuals as well as Kōrinsuchi (交隣須知)” (ibid.: 17).

Kōrinsuchi (交隣須知) was a truly epoch-making Korean language manual compiled by

Amenomori Hōshū (雨森芳洲,1668-1755), a Confucian interpreter from Tsushima, and

had been reprinted throughout the Edo period. Even after the Meiji period, it had been

continuously revised and republished by different authors with some minor changes in

contents. Kōrinsuchi contains chapters for conversations on politics, weapons, and wars,

yet what differs from the manuals written after the Meiji period is the absence of

nationness. The absence of terms such as Japan, Japanese spirit, Westerners, or

China/Russia makes for a striking contrast with the other texts dealt with here.

Moreover, one of the most popular Korean language manuals widely used until

late Meiji, Nikkan tsūwa (日韓通話, 1893), adopted structures and sample phrases from

Kōrinsuchi, yet, as mentioned in the author’s preface, it also imitates the structure and

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orders of Western conversational manuals which introduced the compound words for

daily use together with exercises so that readers could practice for themselves,

anticipating real situations of various kinds, while Kōrinsuchi is simply a voluminous

phrase book.

The language manuals for the Sino-Japanese War often contained three

languages: Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. Generally speaking, the characteristics of

language manuals published in the Sino-Japanese War period can be summarized as

follows:

1) pocket-size

2) no Korean script (or Russian script, but some manuals give Chinese phrases in

Chinese characters with kana pronunciations attached); written in katakana pronunciation

only

3) limited to short simple phrases mainly in imperative, confirmation, threatening,

prohibition, permission, or interrogative forms

The topics in these manuals include not only the conventional ones from Kōrinsuchi (e.g.,

astronomy, geography, diseases, valuables, body, personality), but also newly added

topics such as letters, numbers, names of places, weapons, and battles, which met

soldiers’ immediate needs for food, help, and survival on the battlefield. They also

contain sentences to cheer up soldiers’ spirits, to talk about the current warfare situation,

how Japanese soldiers are supposed to behave, etc. No polite expressions or honorifics

were used. (ibid.: 20-23)

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Furthermore, although most of the language manuals for soldiers in the Sino-

Japanese War do not include original script from the target languages, Kōrinsuchi and

Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) have Korean writing. Nikkan kaiwa, a massive 206-

page-long pocketsize manual compiled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff

Office, is also one of the most significant and influential manuals, which many later

manuals take as their model. The final forms in this manual are relatively polite (-desu / -

masu form) and its structure follows that of Western conversational manuals.

4.3.1.1.1 Noteworthy phrases with respect to language and colonial discourse

What you find in the quotations that follow in this and following sections is that

the ideas expressed by the authors, by and large, correspond to the above-proposed four

patterns of national thinking and colonialism discourse as well as to pan-Asianism. As

for the pan-Asianist trend, which was the favorite rhetoric and pet theory of the language

manual authors, I examine it in detail in the next section. I shall thus let the authors

speak for themselves and insert my own comments and remarks on each preface only

briefly so as not to interrupt the flow of the presentation. The numbers in front of the

manual titles are given in chronological order to facilitate reference.

1. Nikkan tsūwa日韓通話 (1893)

1.1. “Once upon a time, people said there were treasure lands in the East. They are

Paekche, Silla, and Koguryŏ, which are today’s Chosŏn. What made them say so? The

country has gold and silver in the mountains, various kinds of farm produce in its fields,

beauty in nature, and numerous kinds of precious products and medicinal herbs. As the

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country is located in the center of the East, transportation is convenient. The state of

affairs is stable and the country is wealthy owing to trade. Our country must follow the

way Korea does and acquire wealth and prosperity. The treasure that people need for

living is what springs abundantly from nature. Otherwise, the term ‘treasure’ sounds

empty… If people engaged in shipping trades do not have this book, they are like people

who are empty-handed in a treasure mountain.” (From the preface contributed by

Kinoshita Masayuki木下眞弘)

This type of rhetoric is often found in writings of Western explorers who referred

to the East as a fertile land of opportunity, i.e., a typical Orientalist/colonialist utopian

view is expressed here, but in Japanese. It signals the successful importation of

colonialist discourse.

1.2. “Two hundred years after the diplomatic relationship started, the Treaty of Amity (修

好條規 Shūkōjōki) and Trade Agreement (通商規約 Tsūshōjōki) were signed in 1876,

and thereafter the relationship has been much strengthened and trade business is growing

year by year. Nonetheless, because of the language barrier, people cannot build a good

relationship, and lose profit.” (From the preface written by the author, Kokubun Kunio国

分国夫)

In the early years, as I mentioned in the previous section, authors wrote language

manuals that address businessed needs more than anything else. In fact, not only

language manual authors but also their elite contemporaries in the army and navy were

also concerned with the constant financial shortages of the Japanese government, to the

extent that one group of elite officers, who were greatly alarmed by Japan’s financial

69

situation, quit the army and founded a language school in China to educate Japanese

youths capable of learning trade (from the stories about the Tōa Dōbun Shoin, covered in

the previous section). Japan was indeed in the “cautious engagement” stage.

2. Chōsen gogaku hitori annai朝鮮語學獨案内 (1894)

2.1. “The ethnic groups and their languages in Northern Asia, Japan, Korea, and Turkey

highly resemble each other. Ŏnmun in Korea is kana in Japan. Scholars should look into

Hebrew and so on to find their origins and the truth behind them, which will later

contribute to the formation of a great alliance.” (From the preface contributed by Taguchi

Ukichi田口卯吉)

Though some claimed a closer relationship than others, speculations about shared

language genealogy repeatedly appear in the prefaces of Korean language manuals

published around the turn of the century, in order to call for unity based on a shared

cultural heritage, a hallmark phrase of pan-Asianists, together with the claim of linguistic

similarity, especially in the syntax and the use of kana and ŏnmun (today’s han’gŭl).

3. Shinsen chōsen kaiwa新撰朝鮮會話 (1894)

3.1. “[The recommendation letter] says “look at the intelligence he has got; it is hard to

find among Koreans… The intention of the author is to make Japanese master Korean, or

to make Koreans master Japanese, or both? Anyway, for the sake of ‘knowing others is

knowing oneself,’ there should be some benefit… The author should have a

determination to endeavor for the sake of his country using all the knowledge and

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experience he got from Japan.” (From the preface contributed by Tokutomi Sohō徳富蘇

峰)

The author of this language manual was a Korean, Hong Sŏkhyŏn. The

recommendation letter mentioned in the text suggests a reference letter written for Hong

when he paid a visit to Tokutomi Sohō (徳富蘇峰, 1863-1957), a well-known critic of

the time, to ask him to write a preface for Hong’s language manual. As the referee’s

words show, he regards Hong’s intelligence as an unusual feature for a Korean –

according to a common stereotype among the Japanese, Koreans were supposedly

“backward” so there was no need for the Japanese to learn Korean.

4. Nichigo shōkei日語捷徑 (1895)

4.1. “What is most needed for people to know civilization and get enlightened is nothing

but an understanding of Japanese… [T]here is no doubt that [learning Japanese through

this book] will open the door for Koreans to new knowledge.” (From the preface

contributed by Shizan紫山生)

Here, an early example of “enlightened leadership” is observed, i.e., Koreans are

considered to be as yet “uncivilized” people who need the help of the Japanese to get

“enlightened.”

5. Nichiwa chōshun: tango rengo日話朝雋:單語連語 (1895)

5.1. “[I]f men and women of all ages read this book, they will have a good grasp of both

languages and contribute to making the countries prosperous. Thus, we have decided to

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author the book.” (From the preface written by the authors, Yi Pong’un李鳳雲 and Sakai

Masutarō境益太郎)

The preface assumes that the audience speaks neither Japanese nor Korean

“properly,” judging by the phrase, “if men and women of all ages…have a good grasp of

both languages.”

6. Jitchi ōyō chōsengo dokugakusho實地應用朝鮮語獨學書 (1896)

6.1. “To keep Korea’s independence and encourage its people, domestic administrative

reform is crucial, and in order to carry it out, Koreans should never lower themselves, but

they should foster their national pride. Korea is now on the decline because Koreans had

been lowering themselves, whereas China is on the decline today because Chinese have

lost their national pride.” (From the preface contributed by Sakuraura櫻浦生)

After the victory in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5), this preface contributor

offers his analysis of the reasons for the “failure” of remodeling of Korea and China, as if

to give them guidance for the future.

6.2. “What has driven Japan into the war against China is [the desire] to maintain peace

in the East and the independence of declining Korea… Then, after the war ends, we must

keep the independence of Korea and protect Korea, which is our purpose in this war. For

that sake, land development, financial reform, and promotion of industries are crucial.

This great task can never be fulfilled by Koreans; they need Japan’s help, and in order to

lend a hand to Koreans, learning Korean is essential for Japanese.” (From the preface

written by the authors, Yumiba Jūei弓場重英 and Naitō Ken内藤建)

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This is a good example of early “enlightened leadership,” whereby the complete

colonization of Korea is not considered, but instead, Japan’s leadership in the

development of the Korean Peninsula is assumed.

4.3.1.2 Late Meiji period: 1900-1910 – the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)

Japan was doubly disadvantaged as a late-comer to the club of Great Power aspirants, and

a non-European one at that. Even such stout supporters of Japan’s nation-building efforts as

the British sociologist Herbert Spencer, Theodore Roosevelt, and European constitutional

advisers warned Japanese leaders against trying to reach an “advanced” stage of

development in a short period of time. Sympathetic foreigners repeatedly expressed doubts

about whether any non-European people could establish a stable constitutional government

of its own accord. Surrounded by all these doubts, it is little wonder that many Japanese felt

anxious about their prospects of acceptance into even the secondary ranks of international

leadership – unless they agreed to play the role of regional front-man for a Western power…

The writings of Fukuzawa, an independent scholar whose books sold in the millions, indicate

how widespread such doubts were. (Benner: 29)

According to Sung (2010), the language manuals in the late Meiji were written for

a variety of purposes, such as the Russo-Japanese War, modernization/industrial

enterprises in Korea, international trade, smooth communication in daily conversations,

and public enterprise and official duty; their contents varied depending on the purposes.

The authors of these manuals were much more skilled than those in the early Meiji, as

reflected in the quality of structures, sample phrases, and the descriptions of the books.

Sung writes, “Japanese intended to grow manpower and the economy in Korea through

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active investments in various kinds of industries and education. They opened markets

and built infrastructure including railroads. Such a state of affairs is pronounced in detail

in the prefaces of these manuals” (Sung: 34). The preface from Dokugaku kango taisei

(獨學韓語大成, 1905) says: “Learning Korean and Japanese is the urgent priority today.

If people of both countries cooperate together and develop the great natural resources of

Korea, they will share the peace and prosperity of the East by means of enhancing

national prosperity and defense” (ibid.: 35). It is uncertain in what kind of form the

author expected the two countries to “develop the great natural resources of Korea” and

to “share the peace and prosperity of the East,” but it is highly likely that the author

expected Japanese’ leadership in such a bilateral relationship. Sung concludes that it was

the modernization of Korea, its industrial development, and bilateral trade, that led

directly to further development of the Japanese economy and military power. And in

order to achieve this goal, Japanese were required to master the Korean language from

basic daily conversation to expressions of warm hospitality (ibid.). Until the Meiji 20s

(1887-1897), most Korean language manuals were designed only to teach Korean

language to Japanese readers; nevertheless, starting from ca. Meiji 30s (1897-1907) they

also began to add another function to the manuals; teaching Japanese to Koreans. By the

Meiji 40s (1907-1912), it became fairly common for one and the same manual to have

both functions, i.e., instructing Japanese as well as Korean. After the annexation of

Korea, due to assimilation policy, the number of Korean language manuals published

decreased drastically while the number of Japanese language manuals increased. (ibid.:

36) This is a significant observation because it is indicative of a certain radicalization of

the “enlightened leadership” from the outset of the colonization period.

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While the language manuals for the Sino-Japanese War contained up to four

languages (Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, and English), the manuals for the Russo-

Japanese War often included up to five languages, adding Russian. The contents

resemble those from the previous war. Nonetheless, the level of politeness in speech

increased considerably (ibid.: 38). During the Sino-Japanese War, the speech forms in

the manuals were mostly limited to casual speech, yet in the late Meiji, at the time of the

Russo-Japanese War, the number of language manuals which adopted relatively polite

speech levels, such as “de arimasu” “desu / masu” and “o~nasai” grew considerably

(ibid.). This is indicative of the successful policy of the consolidation of the national

language and the purge of dialects; it also implies that the Russo-Japanese War was seen

as a war between two “civilized” nations, insofar as the concern was about how the

“civilized” should behave while fighting against a “civilized” Western enemy. The

changes from the previous war to the Russo-Japanese War are not limited to the speech

forms in conversations but extend into the contents as well. Striking contrasts in contents

are especially conspicuous in the multilingual manuals. In Russian, as if to demonstrate

how “civilized” Japanese are to Russians, the speech levels are much more polite than the

corresponding Korean sentences. The contents are also much more moderate than those

in the Chinese and Korean sections. It is intriguing to see that in one manual,

Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904), sentences in Russian

inquire about a new book release with a beautiful front cover, while those in Chinese are

about looking for a missing newspaper, and those in Korean are about how great Japan

and the Japanese soldiers are.

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Sung, in her conclusions, draws comparisons between the early Meiji manuals and

the late Meiji ones, maintaining that many language manuals in the early Meiji show

vocabulary and conversational samples without the explanation of han’gŭl, whereas those

in the late Meiji often explain writing, spelling, and pronunciations in detail and show

more sophistication in forms (ibid.: 42). Besides, in the early Meiji, most manuals had

separate sections for vocabulary and conversations, while those in the late Meiji had these

two combined, showing vocabulary first and conversational examples for practice next

(ibid.). Furthermore, they employ diverse forms both in categorization and structure to

derive the best effect in learning (ibid.: 42-43). The manuals in the late Meiji period

grew in page size and in page numbers, and this tendency paralleled their linguistic

consolidation (ibid.: 44).

A possible explanation for these tendencies would be the change in the demand

from the Japanese audience as well as an improvement in the language skills of Japanese

alongside the results of linguistic research (ibid.). Also, the authors of the early Meiji

manuals are mostly Japanese, yet in the late Meiji, co-authored manuals by Japanese and

Koreans or those proofread by Koreans increased in number (ibid.: 45). Even though

biographical information about the Japanese authors remains largely uncertain, most of

them sojourned in Korea for extended periods of time and learned the language through

communication with Koreans. Some authors, such as Shimai Hiro, Matsuoka Kaoru,

Kanashima Taisui, Hirono Kanzan, Maema Kyōsaku, etc. published language manuals

with similar contents in numerous editions. (ibid.) Their language skills were very high

and their Korean translations quite accurate. Also, not only their Japanese but also their

Korean speech etiquette followed those of cultured norms. This is because they stayed for

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long periods in Seoul, Pusan, or Incheon, while being associated with people of high

social status, and directly acquired their speech, a fact which is reflected in their work.

(ibid.: 46)

The places of publication, which were widely scattered in the early Meiji (Tokyo,

Osaka, Yamaguchi, Nagasaki, Kanazawa, Kumamoto, Sendai, Kagawa), become

concentrated in three locations: Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul; there are some differences in

endings depending on the place of publication (ibid.). Besides, the early Meiji manuals

cover mostly the vocabulary and phrases needed for particular situations which met the

purposes of publication and expressed one’s subjective intentions. Conversely, those

from the late Meiji put more focus on smooth communications, paying great attention to

the proper use of cordial expressions. (ibid.: 48) This again is indicative of the

consolidation of Japanese national language norms.

Sung argues throughout her dissertation that the improvement in linguistic studies

on the Japanese side (sophistication in grammatical descriptions, in the structure of the

manuals, accuracy in translations, etc.) should be taken into consideration and indeed,

many authors or preface-contributors mention the names of Western missionary linguists,

which shows their sophistication in the field of language studies.14 However, I tend to

14 For instance, Junpei Shinobu in his preface to Bunpō chūshaku kango kenkyūhō (文法註釋韓語硏究法,1909) says: “I myself have a great interest in research methods of foreign languages. According to myshallow understanding in this field, the Frenchman François Gouin (1831-?)’s research method isimpressive. In summary, Gouin’s method employs the way babies naturally learn the languages theirmothers speak. The same method should be applied to Korean; the natural acquisition by ear is the best.”Also, Yasuo Iguchi mentions Gale’s massive Korean-English dictionary in the preface to his book Jitsuyōhon’i nissen jiten (實用本位日鮮辭典, 1920), saying: “Although it has been many years since Korea wasannexed, I have never heard that any Japanese-Korean or Korean-Japanese dictionaries were published.Even though there are not many residents from the U.S. and England in Korea, they have a great dictionarywritten by Dr. Gale, and despite the difference in syntax, most of them speak good Korean. On the otherhand, there are few Japanese who are able to say greetings in Korean. What makes such a difference?”Yakushiji in his Bunpō chūshaku kango kenkyūhō文法註釋韓語硏究法 (1909) says: “…many languagemanuals only list words and conversational phrases and none of them have yet explained Korean

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attribute this state of affairs not only to the growth of Western linguistic knowledge in

Japan, but more fundamentally to the consolidation of the Japanese national language

around the Kantō dialect as a standard and the development of new standards of

politeness, as contrasted to earlier Edo forms in formal writing sōrōbun (候文) and

dialectal diversity in the provinces. In Foucauldian terms, the subjection of others starts

from disciplining oneself: to begin a colonial discourse, Japan itself needed to be

solidified along the lines of an “enlightened nation.”

4.3.1.2.1 Noteworthy phrases with respect to language and colonial discourse

7. Nisshinkan sangoku senjimon日淸韓三國千字文 (1900)

7.1. “Back in the days of the time of Emperor Ōjin (應神天皇, 201-310), books such as

the Analects of Confucius (論語 Rongo) and the Thousand Character Classic (千字文

Senjimon) were introduced to our country from Paekche, and thereafter our culture and

institutions began developing and reached today’s prosperity. Now translating the

Thousand Character Classic is a principle of Heaven.” (From the preface contributed by

Kametani Seken龜谷省軒)

As we shall observe more and more from here on, the rhetoric of Japan as an

“enlightened leader” to bring Korea modern knowledge and civilization is equated with

“returning the debt of gratitude for the ancient civilization.” The Analects of Confucius

and the Thousand Character Classic stand out as typical examples of cultural debt, and in

phonemics and grammar systematically. There are some works done by Westerners, yet these are notappropriate for Japanese learners. Thus, intending to fill the blank here, I have made efforts to explainabout the phonetics and grammar in this book.”

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the core of this manual, the Thousand Character Classic is the title of the book and forms

the core of its contents.

7.2. “One poem says: although brothers fight against each other at home, if they suffer an

insult outside their home, they fight back together. The people of the three countries

must think about this carefully.” (From the preface contributed by Gamō Keitei蒲生褧

亭)

This is another example calling for pan-Asian unity between Japan, Korea and

China against the West.

7.3. Observing Korean politics and customs, the author writes, “lay people share the same

systems with us and their culture and institutions are not so different from ours. It is

natural to cooperate with each other in order to tide over the situation… Our literature

came from Korea in ancient times and Koreans brought the Thousand Character Classic

to us. This is the origin of the Thousand Character Classic in Japan. Revitalizing the

relationship between the two countries based on the Thousand Character Classic – this is

one of the ways to repay a debt of gratitude… In the 16th year of Emperor Ōjin, an erudite

envoy from Paekche brought us the Analects of Confucius and the Thousand Character

Classic, from which our literature is derived. Since the time Empress-consort Jingū

conquered the Korean Three Kingdoms and established an outside government in

Mimana (任那), the interaction between our two countries has never ceased and

meantime all the culture, institutions, arts, and crafts came from Korea. Thus, when we

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see the relationship literally, Korea and Japan are friendly neighbors, yet when we see it

in terms of duty and loyalty, Korea and Japan are sworn brothers.

In the time of Emperor Tenji, the Tang dynasty at last defeated Paekche and tried

to annex Koguryŏ. Although the courts of Paekche and Koguryŏ still had the power to

rescue their people, a great number of emigrants of the two countries ended up in our

land. This is clearly written in the Kokuten (國典 State Code) and Koreans are well

aware of this, too.

The Book of Songs (詩經) says ‘Why would you not think about your ancestors?

In order to praise your ancestors’ virtuous conduct, you must first undertake virtuous

conduct for yourself. By doing so, you will inherit your ancestors’ virtues…’ Today

Korea and Japan keep independence in the East and one can see the reason for it through

the history of the two countries and through archeological studies. However, the reason

for the current vicissitudes can be understood not only through country-internal processes,

but also through the power game between world powers.” (From the preface contributed

by Shakusui Kusaka勺水日下)

At the very beginning of this excerpt, the preface contributor refers to the

resemblence in politics and customs between Japan and Korea, but he claims that it is not

courtiers but “lay people” who share the same culture and institutions with the Japanese.

And he calls for cooperation based on this cultural resemblence, reaffirming his pan-

Asianist outlook. Then he proceeds to another example of “repaying a debt of gratitude,”

referring to the Thousand Character Classic. Furthermore, by referring to the story (or

rather, myth) of Empress-consort Jingū’s occupation of Korea and her mission in Mimana

(任那) as well as the episode of the emigrants from Paekche and Koguryŏ, he seeks the

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grounds for bilateral harmony (under Japan’s leadership) and calls for future pan-Asian

solidarity.

7.4. “People of old said: ‘what one has obtained by means of weapons can never be

controlled and pacified by means of weapons.’ This is an important saying which should

be applied to the political scene. Last year, the emperor, being concerned with the

independence of Korea, sent troops to war. Now, when the troops have been completely

withdrawn, is the time to rely on the means of letters… ‘A thousand-mile journey starts

from one step.’ This is a principle which can be applied to any language, and it is not

only of benefit to Koreans. When we look back to the past, a large part of our civilization

came from the Korean Three Kingdoms (三韓), and everything was brought by Koreans;

this is an enormous debt of gratitude. Now the author, a person from our country, has

compiled a language manual and has been contributing to education in Korea; this is

‘repaying a debt of gratitude.’ How can one not be touched by this?” (From the preface

contributed by Akizuki Tanetatsu秋月種樹)

This is yet another example of “repaying a debt of gratitude,” a moderate

Confucian rhetoric for asserting influence over Korea and justifying Japan’s intervention

into Korea’s cultural reforms and internal affairs.

7.5. “From the beginning, the three countries share the same race, script, and thoughts,

but the languages differ in sounds. In order to learn the languages, people must pay

attention to their similarities and differences.” (From the preface contributed by Yŏlsu kŏ

sa洌水居士)

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This Korean preface contributor also puts an emphasis on the shared cultural

heritage, such as script, race, and thoughts among Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

7.6. “If the harmonious relationship between the three is broken off, the enemies [i.e.,

Western powers] will bring the East misfortune and calamity. Thus, peoples of the three

countries must cooperate together to strengthen the trilateral friendship. Amongst many

options, literature serves best for this purpose. From the beginning, the literatures of the

three countries are related like fathers and sons, but they have developed differently due

to the differences in land and customs. However, if we study hard, we will find a way to

facilitate communication between the three.” (From the preface contributed by Ijūin

Hikokichi伊集院彦吉)

This preface contributor even alarms the audience that the West might intrude into

the East if China, Korea, and Japan do not cooperate together. And according to him, in

order to strengthen the trilateral relationship, the shared cultural heritage, namely

literature, will be the best bond among the three countries, saying that the literatures of

the three nations were originally one and were simply different variations sharing the

same roots.

7.7. “…The Eastern civilization has been developed owing to the presence and power of

Chinese characters. However, some people argue that Chinese characters are too difficult

and hard to deal with. Yet it is impossible to abolish something which has been in use

already for several thousand years in Asia. Therefore, in the future, people should learn

Chinese characters only briefly and look for the way to facilitate their use in practical

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aspects. I have always been thinking about this… Although Japan is a country with a

spiritual tradition and the Japanese have a spirit called ‘yamato damashii (大和魂)’

which attaches importance to cleanliness and chivalry, they did not have their own letters

in ancient times... When we look at the situations of China and Korea, apparently peace

and stability of the East are at risk. It is urgent to let them understand the world situation

by means of educational reforms. The conventional education is merely memorization of

texts and poetry and is not practical at all; this is exactly the reason for the decline of the

East… It is obvious that today’s cultural maturity of our country is derived from the

scholarship which came from ancient Korea, China, and India. Thus, if Japan helps

Korea and China whose race, scholarship, and customs resemble ours, Japan will be

repaying the old debt of gratitude. These days, due to the convenient transportation links

between the East and the West, the Western powers have been watching us for a chance

to intrude upon us. Hence, what is most needed now is to remedy the vicious old

practices, clarify the situations of the world, keep the power balance of each country, and

stabilize the regional situation. Even a small mistake might bring a great misfortune; we

must learn from the overthrow of India…” (From the preface written by the author,

Aranami Heijirō荒波平治郎)

The author of this book called the “Thousand Character Classic of Japan, China,

and Korea” apparently advocates the use of Chinese characters, to which, he claims, “the

Eastern civilization” owes its existence. Nonetheless, he also argues that studying

Chinese characters has to be more concise and reconsidered from the perspective of

practical ease. Then he uses the same logic of “Japan repaying the old debt of gratitude,”

saying Japan owes Chinese characters and its ancient civilization to China and Korea, but

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now in return, China and Korea can learn modern civilization from Japan instead of

learning how to recite poetry. By referring to the case of India, he reminds his readers of

the importance of trilateral cooperation and regional stability in order to prevent the West

from intruding upon Asia.

8. Nichigo dokushūsho日語獨習書 (1903)

8.1. “Marine transportation and commerce are today’s world trend, and following the

trend, people of foresight set their priority on having a good knowledge of Western

styles… As travel becomes more frequent and the relationship between the two countries

more important, drawing comparisons between the two countries becomes vital… The

distinguished Japanese scholar Mr. Murakami is a great person with a scholarly passion.

He has established the Kinryō tōbungakudo (金陵東文學堂, a Japanese language school

in China founded by Higashi-honganji東本願寺) and taught youths in China for four

years, contributing to local civilizational development and ideological improvement.”

(From the preface written by the Chinese authors, Guo Zupei郭祖培 and Xiong Jinshou

熊金壽)

The authors were graduates of the Kinryō tōbungakudo showing their respect for

their teacher at the school who also proofread the manuscript of the manual. As I

mentioned previously, in Japan, instead of Christian missionaries, it was Buddhist sects

that were active in language education abroad.

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9. Shikoku kaiwa: nichiei taishō shinachōsen四國會話:日英對照支那朝鮮 (1904)

9.1. “When we think about today’s East Asian situation, we should be aware that we are

responsible for its future. Suffering from the large indemnity, can the post-war Chinese

empire recover from the damage? Yes. Although its land and wealth have withered, its

presence and potential are still far-reaching.

A tragedy occurred in China as the world powers invaded its territory. This

brought on a crisis in East Asia and today we live in a world where the strong prey upon

the weak. In the past, Ferdinand Cortes from Spain conquered Mexico and Francisco

Pizarro subjugated Peru. Today, likewise, they are rushing to East Asia. This is the what

they always do.” (From the preface written by the author, Kawabe Shiseki川邊紫石)

The author of this multilingual manual (Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean),

who is concerned with China’s misery and the encroachment of imperial powers around

the world, seems to take a more “defensive”/“cautious engagement” stance rather than

“enlightened leadership,” likely because the book was written around the time when the

Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) broke out.

10. Shussei hikkei nichiroshinkan kaiwa出征必携日露淸韓會話 (1904)

10.1. “The Japanese Empire tries to keep a good relationship with the world superpowers,

and by doing so, we keep the regional security without harming the profits of each

country, thus securing a long-lasting future of the Empire… Korea’s security problem is

very important to us, not only because of the long close relationship between the two

countries but also because of the possible regional security crisis which will affect the

Empire... Manchuria became a part of Russia, and the security of Korea will be

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vulnerable, causing regional instability… Korea’s security is in peril and the national

interests of the Empire face imminent danger.” (From the Declaration of War on the eve

of the Russo-Japanese War, quoted on the book cover.)

As shown in the title of the book (a “must-have item when you go to war –

Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Korean language manual”), this manual is written

specifically for Japanese soldiers going to the Russo-Japanese War. The manual includes

the Declaration of War, which states Japan’s reasons for fighting against Russia, i.e., to

protect Asia from a regional security crisis.

11. Dokugaku kango taisei 獨學韓語大成 (1905)

11.1. “Located only a stream away from each other, Korea and Japan have been in a close

relationship, which is already no different from people in the same village drinking water

from the same well.” (From the preface contributed by Cho Minhŭi趙民熙)

The preface contributor, Cho Minhŭi (趙民熙, 1859-?), was the ambassador

extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Korea to Japan. Along the lines of stressing a close

relationship between Korea and Japan, he emphasizes the geographical proximity

between the two countries by using an idiomatic expression, ichii taisui (一衣帯水;

literally, located only a stream away from each other), a popular expression used by many

language manual authors, together with “dōbun dōshu (same script, same race),” which I

discuss in the next section.

11.2. “The entanglement between Japan and Korea has been complex for hundreds of

years and has not yet been solved. Nonetheless, today, fortunately, the way of all things

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has been clarified and the direction to be taken has been decided. Thus, people of both

countries should trust each other and care about each other, striving for the happiness of

each other. To achieve these goals, mutual understanding is crucial.” (From the preface

contributed by Ebara Soroku江原素六)

Japan practically made Korea its protectorate after the victory in the Russo-

Japanese War (1904-5) and this preface implies that fact and suggests that people of both

countries learn each other’s languages to foster “mutual” benefits.

11.3. “Hideyoshi said: ‘Make them speak in our language, why do you need interpreters?’

Although his words sound vigorous, it was his ignorance of the situation that made him

say so.” (From the preface contributed by Kuga Minoru陸実)

Some prefaces compare Hideyoshi’s expedition to the Korean Peninsula in the

sixteenth century to the current situation and suggest their readers learn a lesson from

past failures and study Korean.

11.4. “After the Russo-Japanese War, the world has changed greatly and it goes without

saying that Japanese must learn Korean. The relationship between Koreans and Japanese

has become so close to the extent that they share good days and bad days and rely on

each other. How could Japanese and Koreans possibly, without learning each other’s

languages, still rely on interpreters? This book perfectly meets the demands of the

changing world today.” (From the preface contributed by Kamei Eizaburō龜井英三郞)

This preface also suggests that Japan technically made Korea its protectorate after

the Russo-Japanese War and suggests that Japanese readers learn Korean, which can be

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interpreted as a sign of “cautious engagement” as well as of “enlightened leadership.”

Judging from the overall tone of the sentences, this preface contributor seems to be

alarmed by the current situation in Japan and feels a pressing need to catch up with

changing world standards.

11.5. “With gold mines in the mountains and rich crops in its fields, Korea, located in a

strategically good place, keeps the land wealthy enough to grow strong as a military

power. However, depending on the era and people in charge, this great potential has not

always been fulfilled. It is good that, luckily, today’s politicians are aiming at reforms

and development of the country… At the turn of the century, Japan’s victory in the

Russo-Japanese War brought peace to the East and happiness to the people. Korea had

better follow this good model case, which sees the flow of the times, and start reforms,

regulate bureaucrats’ behavior and injustice, and give rise to business in the private

sector… Learning Korean and Japanese is the urgent priority today. If people of both

countries cooperate together and develop the great natural resources of Korea, they will

share in the peace and prosperity of the East by means of enhancing national prosperity

and defense.

Written on the day when I heard the good news that Japan had occupied Port Arthur.”

(From the preface written by the author, Itō Ikichi伊藤伊吉)

Another Orientalist/colonialist perspective on Korea’s fertile land and

strategically important location is observed, and the author is concerned with the fact that

the great potential has not always been fulfilled due to the incapability of Koreans.

Although the author values that Korean politicians of the time are aiming at reforms and

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development of their country, he presupposes Japanese guidance in such reforms.

Examplifying the “enlightened leadership” pattern, the assertion of the author proceeds to

the shared “peace and prosperity of the East” under a regional security guaranteed by

Japan.

12. Kango dokushūshi韓語獨習誌 (1905)

“[N]ow learning Korean is an urgent task for courageous expansionists. Hence, without

inquiring whether it is sufficient or not, I have decided to publish this book mainly for the

practical purposes of those who have an ambition in the management of the peninsula and

have no schools around where they live or no time for schooling.” (From the preface

written by the author, Fujito Keita藤戸計太)

After Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), the overall tone of

language manual prefaces shifted from “cautious engagement” to “enlightened

leadership,” as seen in this preface.

13. Nikkan shinkaiwa日韓新會話 (1905)

13.1. “...the Meiji government has done lots of favors for Korea, including helping with

their financial difficulties in investments, educating their students with new Western

knowledge, fighting against China and Russia to protect them… [F]rom top to

grassroots, Japanese ignorance about Korea and Koreans should be attributed to their

ignorance of the language… In order to develop Koreans’ intelligence and reform their

country, we should never neglect the importance of learning Korean. In order to make

Korea a protectorate of Japan, there is no other way except for sending our Korean

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experts to Korea, where they will transplant Japanese culture… I hope this book will

help Japanese both in Japan and in Korea to learn Korean so that they will not make the

same mistakes that Hideyoshi did.”

Throughout his preface, the author, Kanashima Taisui (金島苔水) compares the

current situation with that of the Hideyoshi invasions, putting emphasis on the importance

of learning Korean and Korean culture. Although the author does not seem to expect

Korea to be completely annexed by Japan, he suggests assimilating Korea into Japanese

culture by sending Japanese experts on Korea there.

14. Chōsengo hitorigeiko朝鮮語獨稽古 (1907)

14.1. “Needless to say, if one has a setup but doesn’t know what to do with it, it is

impossible to benefit from it. The series of political events between Japan and Korea

after the Russo-Japanese War corresponds to the setup. In order to have the two

countries cooperate and blend in various fields of business, learning languages is the

crucial means to establishing these goals.” (From the preface contributed by Itō Yūkan伊

東祐侃)

The colonialist mindset is conspicuous in this preface. In order to benefit from

colonial enterprise, the preface suggests readers learn the language.

15. Nikkan iroha jiten日韓いろは辭典 (1907)

15.1. “To have a very close relationship with our country is a natural result for Korea,

which is located only 10 hours away from Shimonoseki… Now Korea’s ten million

people, its thirteen thousand square miles of land, and its future happiness are all upon

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our shoulders... [L]earning the language is the single fundamental means for a mutual

understanding in all affairs and building a harmonious blend of the minds of the people…

Thus, having Japanese learn Korean and Koreans learn Japanese is the best way to meet

the needs of both sides fundamentally.” (From the preface contributed by Ōkuma

Shigenobu大隈重信)

The preface contributor, Ōkuma Shigenobu (大隈重信, 1838-1922) was a Meiji

entrepreneur. As he was not only a polititian (two-time prime minister) but also an

educator who founded Waseda University, he was a frequent preface contributor. In this

preface, he puts an emphasis on the geographical proximity of Japan and Korea and on

assimilation policy, stating that harmony between the two countries is mutually

beneficial. Also, by saying, “[n]ow Korea’s ten million people, its thirteen thousand

square miles of land, and its future happiness are all upon our shoulders,” he implies that

Japan is now an “enlightened leader” burdened with a “civilizing mission.”

15.2. “According to my theory, languages which share a common writing system should

in fact be the same language... This book will remove the barrier between the languages

with the same writing system and help to build a good relationship between neighboring

countries, by which the people of both sides will benefit greatly. Besides, thanks to the

book, my theory has advanced one step and I am very grateful for the author’s effort.”

(From the preface contributed by Tokuhisa Tsunenori德久恒範)

Although it is not clear whether “a common writing system” signifies writing with

Chinese characters or writing in the same syntactical order, the “theory” of this preface

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contributor sounds extreme. Either way, his main argument in this preface is that

removing the language barrier between Japan and Korea is mutually beneficial.

16. Bunpō chūshaku kango kenkyūhō文法註釋 韓語硏究法 (1909)

16.1. “A businessman without the knowledge of local languages is equal to a soldier

without weapons on the battlefield: it leads to inevitable failure… Now Korea has

completely become our protectorate, and we are responsible for its development in order

to share the civilizational merits together… I hope the thousands of Japanese

businessmen will study Korean hard with this book and succeed in their business.” (From

the preface contributed by Amano Kinosuke天野喜之助)

The main target readers of this language manual are assumed to be Japanese

engaged in global business, but intriguingly, this preface contributor draws a comparison

between businessmen and soldiers, which attracts readers’ attention and is metaphorically

effective.

16.2. “Observing the fact that Western missionaries, addressing a nation with a different

script and race (or culture and race; ibun ishu,異文異種), speak fluent Korean with good

understanding of the culture and are winning the confidence of Koreans, Japanese who

share the same script and race (or culture and race; dōbun dōshu,同文同種) should feel

ashamed… Besides, because of the language barrier, Japanese get in trouble and cause

serious losses in our administration of the peninsula, which should never be overlooked...

Thus, I have been always suggesting to Japanese, especially those who have close

contacts with Koreans, to learn Korean and make use of it in their daily duties with good

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indices of human feelings, by which they should contribute to private/public

administration in various aspects. This is the reason why I have decided to publish this

book called Kango kenkyūhō.” (From the preface written by the author, Yakushiji Chirō

藥師寺知曨)

This is a clear example of “dōbun dōshu” (interpreted as either “same script and

race” or “same culture and race” because the Chinese character “bun文” signifies both

culture and script), in other words, pan-Asianist theory. As this preface was written in

1909 right before Korea’s annexation, instead of Asian unity against the West, this author

suggests making use of such a pan-Asian base for the sake of successful colonial

enterprise. I discuss on pan-Asianism in detail in a later section.

17. Daisokusei nikagetsu nichigo dokushūsho大速成 二個月日語獨習書 (1909)

17.1. “Jumping over East-West boundaries in a split second, world-wide competition and

invasion are natural results… While idling for days and years, if people do not intend to

spread Japanese language, fools will be all over the peninsula… Alas! Our twenty

million compatriots should be engaged in study and industry. Raising nations and

increasing state power will lead to the enhancement of national glory with the national

flag secured. I believe this is not only my wish but also that of all national subjects from

top to bottom.” (From the preface written by the author, Yuk Jongmyŏn陸種冕)

While accepting Japanese rule, the Korean author encourages his “compatriots” to

learn Japanese and acquire some academic or industrial skills to protect national pride

and independence. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910; thus, when this book was

published in 1909, Korea was still a protectorate of Japan.

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18. Kango bunten韓語文典 (1909)

18.1. “Today, the political strategy against Korea requires not only governmental

involvement but also that of national subjects. We must cooperate with Koreans and lead

them to enlightenment... People quote Hideyoshi out of the blue in order to avoid the

trouble of learning a new language… Nonetheless, I am uncertain if we should remove

the language barrier by the annexation of the country. For this, I will await the opinions

of my superiors.” (From the preface written by the author, Takahashi Tōru高橋亨)

The author, Takahashi Tōru (高橋亨, 1878-1967), was later a professor of Korean

language and literature at Keijō Imperial University. In this preface, he clearly shows an

“enlightened leadership” attitude, saying that every Japanese is responsible for

“enlightening” Koreans and suggesting not avoiding learning Korean like Hideyoshi.

Takahashi wonders if the annexation of Korea will be positive – this manual was

published in 1909 just prior to the annexation in 1910.

19. Kangotsū韓語通 (1909)

19.1. “In linguistic genealogy, there is no doubt that Korean belongs to the agglutinative

language family. Nonetheless, its relationship with other agglutinative languages such as

Manchu, Mongol, and Turkish needs further inquiries, and likewise, the relationship

between Korean and Japanese remains unclear. Nevertheless, observing their numerous

similarities in grammar, if we are to make groups within the agglutinative language

family, no doubt Korean and Japanese fall into the same group.” (From the preface

written by the author, Maema Kyōsaku前間恭作)

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The author, Maema Kyōsaku (前間恭作, 1868-1941), was originally from

Tsushima and served as a Korean interpreter for the Korean Government-General. In the

preface, he talks about the genealogical relationship between Korean and Japanese, which

was a popular topic at that time, and shows his modest disagreement with linking the two

languages without further examination. I will mention the popularity of such

genealogical discourse ca. 1910 in the next section.

20. Seisen nikkan genbun jitsū精選日韓言文自通 (1909)

20.1. “In the world now where thousands of countries are interacting with each other, if

one is smarter or stronger than the other, the former may rule over the latter. If one is not

fluent in languages, how could he or she sense the intentions of the other? On the level of

individuals, if a dimwit confronts a smart one, the result is obvious. If one who is deaf

confronts one who has a good ear, or if one who is blind confronts one who has a good

eye, the result is even more obvious.” (From the preface written by the author, Song

Hŏnsŏk宋憲奭)

In a world where the imperialist powers confronted each other, the Korean author,

in question-and-answer form, suggests readers equip themselves with the least armament,

i.e., language skills, because according to him the lack of language skills is more

dangerous than the lack of intelligence.

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21. Seisen nichigo taikai精選日語大海 (1909)

21.1. “[T]he majority of scholarship in Japan is based on Western civilization. If one had

no knowledge of languages, he or she could not pursue scholarship further.” (From the

preface written by the author, Pak Chunghwa朴重華)

The author, Pak Chunghwa, was not only an independent activist and laborers’

rights activist but also an educator who authored many Japanese language manuals. The

first edition of this language manual was published in 1909 and reprinted numerous times

with revisions. The kind of meritocratic attitude observed in this preface is often found in

the writings of other contemporary Korean intellectuals as well as those of

“collaborators” with Japanese authorities during the colonial period, as seen in

Tikhonov’s work (2010).

22. Nikkan kannichi gengoshū日韓韓日言語集 (1910)

22.1. “The origin of the important definition that Japan and Korea are one house or one

family is deep and far-reaching. Many of those who look for the origins in ancient

history refer to mythology as the reason. Probably historical documents or remains are

included in their references, too. By now, this has been dealt with mainly among

historians, yet lately linguists have also agreed on this. Their theory is the so-called

‘Common Origin of the Japanese and Korean Languages (nikkango dōitsukeisetsu,日韓

語同一系説).’ Although I am neither a historian nor a linguist, considering the

geographical relation and the historical background, I think this theory is convincing.

Thus, comparative studies between the Japanese and the Korean languages are the key to

discovering the origins of the bilateral relationship. On top of that, the significance for

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Japanese to learn Korean and for Koreans to learn Japanese has been highlighted by

recent events. What is most called for in the efforts of the people of both countries at this

particular time is to cultivate mutual friendship between Japan and Korea… Nichigo

gengoshū (日韓語集) authored by Ida Kin’ei (井田勤衛) focuses primarily on real

communication and should be regarded as a work which will not only contribute to the

studies of language learners, but will also bridge the spiritual gap between both countries.

In that sense, I should say the significance of this book reaches further than that of a mere

language manual.” (From the preface contributed by Ōkuma Shigenobu大隈重信)

This is another example of language genealogy as a popular topic at the time. As

mentioned here, in Japan the argument on the genealogical origins of Japan and Korea

was launched in the field of anthropological history and then spread to the field of

linguistics. In this preface, Ōkuma Shigenobu agrees with the “Common Origin of the

Japanese and Korean Languages (nikkango dōitsukeisetsu,日韓語同一系説)” a.k.a.

Kanazawa Shōzaburō’s nissen dōsoron, which I mention in the next section.

22.2. “Countries vary in size and strength, yet they have their own traditions and keep

independence. If countries covet like a wolf, glare fiercely like a tiger, and override other

countries, who could possibly call this a respectful attitude toward public laws? Now

Japan and Korea depend on each other and the people of both countries are learning each

other’s languages while seeking the best solutions cooperatively. By doing so, both

countries can earn respect from the world and show their good relationship. Nonetheless,

even though people have a sense of public justice, this can easily be inclined to be

egocentric and bound by power, which makes it impossible for them to acquire the

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essence of studies. In such cases, even if they become fluent in the languages, I am afraid

that they will never obtain true confidence or concord and never earn any respect from

the public… Now, as ground and marine transportations have developed, countries

around the world have become closer and Korean and Japan are like a family.” (From the

preface contributed by Cho Minhŭi趙民熙)

The preface contributor, Cho Minhŭi (趙民熙, 1859-?), was the ambassador

extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Korea to Japan. Judging from the overall tone of his

writing, he seems to be afraid that Japan might turn into a “wolf” or a “tiger.” Thus, he

repeatedly tells the audience (Japan) to respect public laws and keep a respectful manner

in global society, seeking appropriate distance between Korea and Japan “like a family.”

22.3. “As found in old documents, in ancient times Korea was founded by Susanoo-no-

Mikoto (素盞雄命). With a close look at Korean grammar, the syntax is the same as that

of Japanese. Besides, Koreans use Japan’s jindai-moji (神代文字; letters of the Divine

Age), calling them ŏnmun. Scholars have conducted comparative research on it and

proved it. They resemble each other very much. I have attached the chart of jindai-moji

written by Hirata Nobutane (平田延胤) to the top of this book for readers’ reference. […]

The Sino-Japanese War has awakened Korea from its long delusion by China and as a

result, China is no longer able to intervene in the internal affairs of Korea. Now Korea is

our closest neighbor which needs the utmost care of our country. Thus, learning its

language is the most urgent task and a perfect grammatical guide is crucial for that sake.”

(From the preface written by the author, Ida Kin’ei井田勤衛)

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Just as Ōkuma Shigenobu mentioned in his preface that seeking the genealogical

origins of Japan and Korea is “deep and far-reaching” and “many of those who look for

the origins in ancient history refer to mythology”, the author of the manual connects

Japan’s jindai-moji to Korean ŏnmun (invented in the fifteenth century), referring to

ancient myth. He also states that Japan’s “utmost care” is needed for Korea in a rather

condescending tone.

4.3.1.3 Post-annexation period: from 1911 to 1945

The international game of power in the early twentieth century capitalist expansion

required more than a modernized nation. The most powerful ones had their colonies

administered under the slogans of “enlightened leadership,” draining colonial resources

for their own benefit. Defeating Russia was Japan’s ticket to qualifying for the game.

Korea then became less “a dagger pointing at the heart of the young empire,” and more a

possibility of resource expansion under a slogan similar to Western “enlightened

leadership,” yet with a Confucian tone: “returning the debt of gratitude for ancient

civilization.”

Already in the mid-nineteenth century, European liberals had begun to see the possession

and control of overseas colonies as an essential component of national greatness and their

arguments illustrate how anxieties about imperial-national standing tended to radicalize

even liberal national thinking in top-ranking states… The decades leading up to the First

World War also witnessed the spread of racialist thinking in political, military, and

academic circles in these countries, reflecting anxieties about their ability to maintain top

international status against newcomers like Germany and Japan… It is important to keep

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this comparative ideological history in mind when examining radical Japanese

nationalism in the 1930s [and even earlier.] Some aspects of this nationalism had roots in

indigenous myths, …the 1889 Constitution, …nationalistic education policies, …self-

congratulatory militaristic and racialist thinking during the wars with China and Russia.

But radical national thinking in Japan was also nourished by wider intellectual and

political developments that fostered radical nationalism in most front-ranking Western

countries. (Benner: 33-37)

4.3.1.3.1 Noteworthy phrases with respect to language and colonial discourse

23. Rokujūnichi nissen kaiwa dokushū六十日日鮮會話獨修 (1912)

23.1. The preface written by the author Takagi Tsunejirō (高木常次郞) is heavily ridden

with colonializing discourse, positing “the pressing need to learn Korean for Japanese…

almost to say that Japan is Korea and Korea is Japan, where Japanese are burdened with

the responsibility to lead Koreans to civilization and enlightenment.” And in order to

fulfill the responsibility or “mission accorded by Heaven,” in the author’s words,

“Japanese need to master Korean and learn the actual condition of the country and the

people.” The topic of the last lesson is marriage. At the end of the conversation, the

character says: “after getting a wife, I’d like to go to China to conduct business.”

24. Kanada kokugo taiten가나다國語大典 (1914)

24.1. “Since the current situation is pushing Koreans to import civilization from Japan

and absorb new knowledge, more and more Koreans are trying to study the national

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language (Japanese) both in the cities and in the countryside.” (From the preface

contributed by Oka Motosuke岡元輔)

The preface contributor claims that even Koreans living in the countryside will be

civilized by absorbing new knowledge through Japanese, now the “national language” to

them.

25. Chōsen jukugo kaishaku朝鮮熟語解釋 (1915)

25.1. “Public servants like myself should always be aware of the efficiency of clerical

work. However, just as they favor decorative clothes and ornaments, Koreans often use

too many embellishing expressions in official documents to the extent that it rather looks

cheap, and due to the fact that we are not accustomed to those idiomatic expressions in

Korean, it not only interrupts the efficient flow of clerical work but also often causes

serious problems in central/regional governance owing to mutual misunderstandings.”

(From the preface written by the author, Yamanoi Rinji山之井麟治)

Working as a part of the Japanese colonial enterprise, the author regards the

decorum found in Koreans as a hallmark of “backwardness” in comparison to the

pragmatic efficiency of “modernity” and “civilization.”

26. Jitsuyō hon’i nissen jiten實用本位 日鮮辭典 (1920)

26.1. “Japan and Korea, being in a close relationship, should share good days and bad

days. Nonetheless, the language barrier hinders their assimilation into civilization, which

greatly harms the relationship between the Japanese and Koreans.” (From the preface

contributed by an unknown Korean with family name Han)

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Ten years after the annexation of Korea, this Korean author is concerned with the

language barrier which keeps Koreans from assimilating into civilization and thus from

harmonizing with Japanese.

27. Nissen kaiwa dokushū日鮮會話獨習 (1925)

Both prefaces open with the same story. This seems to be the widely shared view of the

situation at the time: “After the annexation of Korea, thanks to the joint efforts of the

government and the general public, the development achieved in Korea is outstanding;

however, we all have to admit that the industry and economy of the peninsula are still far

behind those of the archipelago (naichi,内地).”

The tone in the following two prefaces reveals anxiety about and frustration with

the management of the colonial enterprise and regards the lack of language skills as the

major cause.

27.1. “The development of the Korean peninsula is a key factor in the further prosperity

of the empire, and it is such a shame to see unnecessary quarrels between Japanese and

Koreans which are often caused by mutual misunderstandings due to the language barrier.

[U]ltimately I believe this book will help Japan and Korea to become one in harmony.”

(From the preface contributed by Shimizu Shigeo清水重夫)

27.2. “Development of Korea is not only a concern for public officials in Korea but also

for all Japanese, who should be aware of how urgent and important the development is

for the further progress of the empire. We should do our best to assimilate Koreans into

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Japanese… I believe this book will be of benefit not only to beginner learners of Korean

but also to the assimilation of the Japanese and Koreans.” (From the preface contributed

by Imae Yonetarō今江米太郞)

28. Nissen kaiwa jiten日鮮解話辭典 (1926)

28.1. “The harmonization of Koreans and the Japanese is the biggest issue to be resolved

for the sake of the welfare of seventy million compatriots… In order to avoid

unnecessary quarrels, people must study the Korean language. People study foreign

languages while putting Korean aside, which is just unreasonable. I hope this language

manual will help Koreans and Japanese to harmonize.” (From the preface written by the

author, U Yonggŭn禹鎔根)

It is rare to find a Korean author suggesting that Japanese study Korean as directly

as this. It is perhaps because the author was a member of the welfare society mentioned

below which consisted of both Japanese and Koreans.

28.2. As the author was a vice-president of the Kyōsai-kai (共濟會 Benefit Society) in

Nagano, the objectives of the Kyōsai-kai are also included.

“Like the sun shining over beautiful spring fields, the peace that we enjoyed has

gone. Having lost the race for survival over the centuries, the compatriots sought for a

breakthrough in China and Russia, which ended in vain. Then the drifters yearned after

the city shining under justice and peace in the eastern sky. Like insects flocking to light,

they came across to Mainland Japan (naichi,内地) leaving their home behind; their

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numbers exceed 300,000. Nevertheless, how is the current situation of those people after

they came over to Japan?

The country with a flourishing culture, which they yearned after when they left

their loving home, provides them neither the stable life which they imagined nor the

education they expected. There is no place to live or food to eat, which puts them in

despair. In addition, the differences in custom and language cause misunderstanding and

inhospitality, which drives them to curse the society as well as their lives. Without

reflection on morality and justice, their minds get twisted, which eventually has a

negative impact on society. How could we overlook the situation with respect to the

ethnic viewpoint? It is clearly essential that the officials in charge should rescue them by

political means, whereas we should rescue them in a humanitarian manner. Both in the

public and private sectors, the lack of institutions to support them is what we feel the

most regret about, and the happiness and prosperity of the humans should never be

divided by borders. Thus, we humans who share the feelings of joy and anger should

help each other by means of love without ethnic divisions. There is no life without love,

and life is always accompanied by love. Setting the coexistence and co-prosperity of

mankind as our motto, we have established the Kyōsai-kai in order to rescue Korean

workers from despair.”

29. Seisen kokugo taihan精選國語大範 (1933)

29.1. “Today, the larger the Japanese Empire expands, the more widely the national

language will be spoken. As for Korea, although it has been long since the public and

private sectors started promoting its use, the number of people who are fluent in the

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[Japanese] language remains small.” (From the preface written by the author, Pak

Chunghwa朴重華)

This manual was published after the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932. This

manual is a reprint of his manual previously published in 1909 (Seisen nichigo taikai;

Preface No. 21), but the change in its title from “nichigo (Japanese)” into “kokugo

(national language)” is symbolic.

4.3.2 Analysis of the contents

Lastly, in this section, I will look into the contents of the language manuals to see

what kinds of phrases the authors wanted their contemporary readers to use and

understand in the areas where the target languages – mostly Korean, and sometimes

Chinese and Russian – were spoken. I have divided the section into sub-sections by

specific themes that are relevant to the discussions in the previous sections.

4.3.2.1 About enemies – China and Russia vs. Japan

“The Chinese soldiers all surrendered without fighting.”15

“Do you think the Japanese soldiers are going to beat the Chinese? – Of course. Chinese

soldiers are not disciplined while Japanese soldiers are under rigorous discipline and

self-restrained. – That means the Japanese soldiers have a true martial spirit.”16

“We are soldiers from Japan, so there is no need for the elderly and ladies to either get

scared or run away. – People were so annoyed by the Russian soldiers’ violence. – Don’t

15 Nichi shin kan sangoku kaiwa (日淸韓三國會話, 1894) p.76, Nisshinkango hitorigeiko (日淸韓語獨稽古, 1895) p.8.16 Nichi shin kan sangoku kaiwa (日淸韓三國會話, 1894) pp.77-8, Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904) p.28.

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worry! We Japanese soldiers are under rigorous discipline and never do any harm to

civilians.”17

“How did the war between Japan and Russia go? – Japan won. – That’s great. The

Japanese soldiers are really strong. – Japan fought this war entirely for the sake of

Korea and China. The Japanese troops are simply magnificent.”18

“The Russian soldiers ran away. The Russian troops are very exhausted.”19

“Since the military code is not strict, the soldiers are not disciplined.”20

“Russians are arrogant and violent.”21

“The military code of Russia is very loose.”22

“Russia invades other countries as it wishes; hence, Japan cannot help but fight against

Russia with all the might of its loyal national subjects. By doing so, Japan will show the

Japanese spirit to the world. When the peace of the East is at risk, Japan must fight.”23

“If a country loses a war which it fought for egoistic reasons, it will be required to pay a

lot of compensation.”24

“Judged by our merits, we receive medals and bonuses.”25

“Since Japan defeated Russia, we are expecting to receive treasures from Russia.”26

“Since Russian soldiers are all uneducated, there is no doubt that the Japanese, not only

educated but also patriots, will defeat the Russians.”27

17Mankandogo annai (滿韓土語案内, 1904) p.46-7, p.100, Nikkan kaiwa sanjū'nichikan sokusei (日韓會話三十日間速成, 1904) p.172.18 Jicchi ōyō nikkan kaiwa dokushū (實地應用日韓會話獨習, 1904) pp.72-3.19 Iroha hiki chōsengo annai (いろは引朝鮮語案内, 1904) p.42.20 Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) pp.127-8.21 Ibid. p.121.22 Dokugaku kango taisei (獨學韓語大成, 1905) p.345.23 Ibid. p.352.24 Ibid. p.353.25 Ibid. p.258.26 Nikkan gengo gōheki (日韓言語合璧, 1906) p.348.

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In preparation for war, phrases that evoke a feeling of hostility toward the enemy

are often found in the language manuals, including a large number of derogatory terms

and offensive expressions. The target shifted from China to Russia in the second war. It

might be noteworthy, though, that as early as 1894, one language manual has a sentence

asking if anybody has seen Russian soldiers in the area. Another remarkable sentence is

in Dokugaku kango taisei (1905), which uses the logic of “Japan fights in order to keep

the peace and stability of the East.” Although this kind of logic had already appeared in

the Declaration of the War in the Sino-Japanese War, it was not seen in the language

manual phrases until then.

There are also some sentences which reveal the fact that the Japanese might have

had an inferiority complex toward the Chinese, such as “Don’t think that I use the

language of a country bumpkin.”28, “You’ve got some nerve.”29 These sentences only

appear in Chinese phrase examples, not in Korean or Russian contexts.

Although the term “Emperor” appears in the vocabulary sections, it is never

included in conversations in the manuals until 1909, which implies that the authors felt no

need to include such sentences in their manuals because the topic of the Emperor at that

time still had little currency among the general populace. Indeed, the language manuals

often say “fight for the sake of the country” or “for the sake of the nation”, but never

“under the name of the Emperor”. Also, as argued above, soldiers themselves never

expressed their emotions toward the emperor. Rather, and more reasonably, Ichinose

argues that medals and bonuses were used as a means to encourage soldiers to work hard

(37-8), as briefly seen in the above phrases.

27 Kango seiki (韓語正規, 1906) p.206.28 Nichi shin kan sangoku taishō kaiwa hen (日淸韓三國対照會話篇, 1894) p.78.29 Ibid. p.64.

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The term “banzai,” as well as the phrases which contain the term, is everywhere,

to the extent that there is no manual without the term; here is one example in the context

of Korea – “Banzai, banzai! Korean Emperor banzai! Korean citizens banzai! Prince

Ŭihwa of Korea banzai! Empress banzai! Nation banzai! It is a great victory of the East!

The most favorable incident ever to happen since Korea was founded!”30.

4.3.2.2 Self-esteem as high as Mt. Fuji

“Which country is the strongest in the world? – Japan. – But Japan is a small country. –

Though the land is small, the people are endowed with a special Japanese spirit.” 31

“The Japanese soldiers are under rigorous discipline and self-restraint. – That means

the Japanese soldiers have a true martial spirit.”32

“The Japanese swords are the best in the world.”33

“Mt. Fuji is higher than heaven.”34

“Britain has the best navy, Germany has the best army, and Japan has the best military

code.”35

30 Chōsengo hitorigeiko (朝鮮語獨稽古, 1907) pp.78-9.31 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) p.58, Nichi shin kan sangoku kaiwa (日淸韓三國會話, 1894) pp.81-2,Chōsen gogaku hitori annai (朝鮮語學獨案内, 1894) p.167, Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904) p.29, Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.193, Kango dokushūshi tsuki saikin kankokukigyō annai (韓語獨習誌附最近韓國起業案内, 1905) Vol.3 pp.20-21, Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) pp.105-6.32 Nichi shin kan sangoku kaiwa (日淸韓三國會話, 1894) pp.77-8, Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904) p.28.33 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) p.145, Ryokō hitsuyō nichi kan shin taiwa jizai (旅行必用日韓淸對話自在, 1894) p.67, Nisshinkango hitorigeiko (日淸韓語獨稽古, 1895) p.8.34 Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) p.92.35 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) pp.58-9, Nichi shin kan sangoku kaiwa (日淸韓三國會話, 1894) pp.81-2, Chōsen gogaku hitori annai (朝鮮語學獨案内, 1894) p.167, Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904) p.30.

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“Japan is well-known for its strong military, Britain is well-known for its powerful

commerce, and France is well-known for its sophisticated beauty.”36

“Although Japan is a small country, it has the best landscape in the world.”37

Ichinose argues that at the time of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars,

even though talk about the characteristic “Japanese spirit (yamato damashii)” seems

pervasive (e.g., Nisshinkan sangoku senjimon; Preface No.7.7), it was the victory in the

two wars that gave true supporting reasons to secure and strengthen this spiritualism

(113). In fact, Japan barely won the two wars, yet the reason for the victory was

attributed to the special Japanese spirit; in other words, the number of soldiers or power

of the country was not decisive for the results of the wars; what mattered was the military

code, discipline, and Japanese spirit. This discourse gradually strengthens and becomes

more radicalized toward WWII.

4.3.2.3 Healthy degree of skepticism or obsessive doubt?

“If you tell me a lie, I’ll shoot you. – No, I’m not telling you a lie. – Tell me the truth,

quickly!”38

“Hey, you! Where did the enemy soldiers go? – I don’t know. – Stop talking nonsense and

tell me quickly!”39

“Tell me the truth.” “That must be a lie.” “Don’t try to trick me.” “Can’t trust you.”40

36 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.197.37 Nikkan gengo gōheki (日韓言語合璧, 1906) p.177.38 Chōsen gogaku hitori annai (朝鮮語學獨案内, 1894) pp.149-50.39 Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904) p.30.40 Jicchi ōyō nikkan kaiwa dokushū (實地應用日韓會話獨習, 1904) p.76, 78, 80.

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The Korean language manuals contain overwhelming numbers of phrases

concerning lies. These go beyond a healthy degree of skepticism, revealing the obsessive

doubts that the Japanese harbored against Koreans. Ichinose also points out that one

how-to manual for soldiers contained a sample letter format to use in case Japanese

soldiers are killed by Koreans during the two wars (73-4).

4.3.2.4 How to make diehard patriots

“What do Japanese soldiers study? – They study war strategies, geography, gymnastics,

international relations, arithmetic, and history. – They study like scholars!”41

“Everyone, including scholars and students, would go to war in times of state crisis.”42

“Soldiers should always be loyal patriots and serve their country to the death.”43

“You must do some exercise.”44

“You can do anything if you bring up your spirit.”45

“Men without endurance are helpless.”46

“Though the face looks well-fed, his body is weak.”47

“Though it has been only a couple months since they started schooling, our children have

shown much improvement in their behavior.”48

“Scholarship must be done with patriotism!”49

“Merchants like us, too, should work with loyalty and patriotism!”50

41 Shinsen chōsen kaiwa (新撰朝鮮會話, 1894) p.140.42 Ibid. pp.157-8.43 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.288.44 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.94.45 Ibid. p.156.46 Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) pp.121.47 Ibid. pp.139-40.48 Nikkan gengo gōheki (日韓言語合璧, 1906) p.318.49 Ibid. pp.173-4.

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It is noteworthy that rationalistic attitudes were illustrated in the manuals from the

early 1890s as well as in Kōrinsuchi, e.g., “Don’t die meaninglessly where you don’t have

to” or “as it seems difficult to win, let’s surrender.” Nonetheless, as soon as the Sino-

Japanese War broke out, such sentences were no longer included. Instead, the attitude of

“Forsake your life to serve the nation” prevailed. This mental attitude becomes

radicalized later, especially during WWII, to the extent that not only soldiers but also

civilians in Japan committed suicide (or were forced to commit suicide) in order to avoid

becoming prisoners of war. According to Ichinose, this social discourse regarding the

stigma of becoming a prisoner of war as the most despicable deed was first formulated

due to “unequal” warfare situations where Japan was fighting against big countries like

China and the Western enemy, Russia, equipped with the latest weapons (Ichinose: 96).

Later the idea was connected to Bushido and the Japanese spirit (Yamato damashii),

forming a powerful social discourse which led not only to the society’s cold treatment of

returned war prisoners but also to the Japanese soldiers’ abuse of WWII POWs.

4.3.2.5 Civilization talk

“Could you please show me a new release, if any? I am particularly interested in the

genre of poetry and history. – Yes, sir. – What about the small book with a beautiful front

cover? – This is a collection of poems.”51

“The Railroad is the symbol of civilization.”52

“From now on, people who study practical genres of scholarship will be regarded as

great men. – Then, I will learn painting. – Rather than painting, study commerce.” 53

50 Ibid. p.263.51 Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (日露淸韓會話自在法, 1904) p.10.52 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.194.

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“Without the knowledge of Japanese, you will fall behind the times.”54

“After the country becomes civilized, naturally you will be able to have a good

relationship with other countries.”55

“Learning foreign languages is essential in order to absorb new knowledge of civilization

from world scholarship.”56

“Invite foreigners as advisors to each department and learn the systems of civilized

countries.”57

“There is no enemy under heaven if you have humanitarian ethics on the one hand and

the core doctrine of civilization on the other.”58

“Would you like to have your name embroidered on your suit? – Yes, please. Write it in

English.”59

“Do you have any interesting novels? – Which ones would you prefer, historical or

detective novels? – Which publishers are these from, British or American?”60

These sentences start to find their way into the language manuals around the time

of the Russo-Japanese War, when the concern was about how the “civilized” should

behave while fighting against a “civilized” Western enemy. Striking contrasts in contents

are especially conspicuous in the multilingual manuals. In Russian, as if to demonstrate

how “civilized” Japanese are to Russians, the speech levels are much more polite than the

53 Ibid. pp.245-6.54 Ibid.55 Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) p.108.56 Dokugaku kango taisei (獨學韓語大成, 1905) pp.146-7.57 Ibid. p.253.58 Ibid. p.353.59 Kan nichi ei shinkaiwa (韓日英新會話, 1909) p. 402.60 Ibid.

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corresponding Korean sentences. The contents are also much more moderate than those

in the Chinese and Korean sections. It is intriguing to see that in one manual,

Nichiroshinkan kaiwa jizaihō (1904), sentences in Russian inquire about a new book

release with a beautiful front cover, while those in Chinese are about looking for a

missing newspaper, and those in Korean are about how great Japan and the Japanese

soldiers are. Intriguingly, but predictably, this “civilization jargon” can also be observed

in Kan nichi ei shinkaiwa (1909), the multilingual language manual for Korean, Japanese,

and English written by Korean authors, where similar conversations are staged at a

bookstore and at a tailor’s.

4.3.2.6 Filth vs. cleanliness – savagery and colonial discourse

“[At an inn] This is dirty; go change it with a clean one.”61

“You should keep sanitary.”62

“You haven’t cleaned it yet? – Sorry about that. – What a dirty place!”63

“Don’t spit on the ground!”64

“Clean the kitchen! The washroom is dirty!”65

“This dish tastes bad; it smells like rotten fish.”66

“Though the house is dirty, there is a space to sleep, so please come in.”67

61 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) p.230-1.62 Sensen chokugo iri nichi shin kan taiwa benran (宣戰勅語入日清韓対話便覧, 1894) p.20.63 Jicchi ōyō nikkan kaiwa dokushū (實地應用日韓會話獨習, 1904) p.19.64 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.79.65 Kango dokushūshi tsuki saikin kankoku kigyō annai (韓語獨習誌附最近韓國起業案内, 1905) Vol.2,pp.16-7.66 Ibid. Vol.2, p.22.67 Dokugaku kango taisei (獨學韓語大成, 1905) p.91.

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As for savagery, the phrase “Display chopped heads in public!” appears in

Kōrinsuchi published in 1883 and 1904, but Dokugaku kango taisei (1905) criticizes this

as a savage practice of the Koreans, saying “such savage practices remain only in an

underdeveloped country like Korea (259)”, as if the Japanese never had such a practice

before. Moreover, in Kan nichi ei shin kaiwa (1909), the multilingual manual for Korean,

Japanese and English written in 1909 by Korean authors, a conversation in a barbershop

sounds pertinent: “My head is full of filth, so brush my hair well, please. – Yes, sir. After

brushing your hair, let’s wash your head. Which one would you prefer, with soap or with

egg? – Wash it with egg, please.” (324)

4.3.2.7 Eyes on Korea – critiques of its “backwardness” and Japan’s leadership

“The King of Korea is always righteous and loves civilization.”68

“The Emperor of Korea is intelligent and strives in his official duties.”69

“Is there a doctor? – There is no doctor in this town. We’ll go to a pharmacy instead. –

A pharmacist is knowledgeable in medicine? – Not quite.”70

“Some doctors kill their patients.”71

“Is there an ordinance? – Yes, but no one knows how to use it.”72

“The discipline at that haktang [school] is apparently no good, so I will go to public

middle school.”73

“Are you planning to study in the U.S.? – No, I am going to Tokyo.”74

68 Nichi kan ei sangoku taiwa (日韓英三國對話, 1892) p.133.69 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.233.70 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) p.101, Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.206.71 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.236.72 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) pp.142-3, Chōsen gogaku hitori annai (朝鮮語學獨案内, 1894) p.165.73 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.82.

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“Local governors have control over the judiciary as well as the administration, which

gives them enormous authority. Only after they stop accepting bribes, will administrative

reforms be carried out.”75

“Korean craftsmen are often lazy.”76

“No matter how beautiful the clothing is, if it does not suit a man who puts it on, it looks

ugly.”77

“It is difficult to command Korean military forces because they do not maintain

discipline.”78

“Although the palace guards in Seoul are equipped with new Western guns, the others

are still using matchlocks.”79

“Do you know the trick to fix stiff shoulders? If you know, could you teach me? – No, I

don’t know. Go see a doctor!”80

“Pyongyang is well-known for flies and Anju is well-known for mosquitoes.”81

“Intending for civilizational improvement, we have invited Japanese as advisors and

employed them in each department, depending on their specialty.”82

“As bribery is prevalent in underdeveloped countries, misdeeds and injustices occur

frequently.”83

74 Ibid. p.198.75 Ibid. pp.233-4.76 Ibid. p.237.77 Ibid. p.247.78 Ibid. p.288.79 Ibid.80 Kango dokushūshi tsuki saikin kankoku kigyō annai (韓語獨習誌附最近韓國起業案内, 1905) Vol.3,p.4.81 Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) p.194.82 Dokugaku kango taisei (獨學韓語大成, 1905) p.255.83 Ibid. p.262.

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“Korea has invited Japanese advisors to reform its police system. It is very intriguing to

see the effectiveness of one captain / chief inspector who pacified the revolt.”84

“Although he killed a person, his fault was pardoned by bribing a local governor.”85

“The Japanese have established a lighthouse on the Korean Straits where there was none

before.”86

“A Japanese doctor came to this town and he is doing a great job in curing patients.”87

“Weapons in Korea are all imported from other countries while Japan produces weapons

and even warships.”88

“Today, people must actively learn foreign languages. – Language teachers are all

foreigners. – Yet as for Koreans, Japanese teach better than our Korean teachers.”89

“I am planning to learn Chinese and English. – What about German? – You would never

use it even if you learn it. – What do you study these days? – I study Japanese. – You

should study diligently with all your heart. – Of course.”90

The conspicuous emphasis on “backwardness” is found within the descriptive

sentences about Korea. “Decorum” and “laziness” are opposed to efficiency and

diligence – the hallmarks of “civilization” – as the signature characteristics of Korean

“backwardness,” which can be also seen in the prefaces (e.g., Chōsen jukugo kaishaku;

Preface No. 25). Also, there are numerous conversations on medicine and hygiene,

which end up being yet another means of criticizing Korean “backwardness.”

84 Ibid. pp.266-7.85 Nikkan gengo gōheki (日韓言語合璧, 1906) p. 327.86 Ibid. p.178.87 Ibid. p.219.88 Ibid. pp.285-6.89 Ibid. pp.168-9.90 Ibid. pp.169-70.

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4.3.2.8 Racialist discourse – Westerners as descendants of monkeys

“Why are the skin and hair color of Westerners different from ours? – That’s because

they are descendents of monkeys.”91

“They are very hairy and have big mouths and noses.”92

“The people of the West and people of the East are different races.”93

“Europeans have brown eyes and bright hair, whereas most Asians have yellow faces

with black eyes.”94

“Westerners are all tall.”95

“As the color of the skin and beard are different from ours, Russians look ugly.

Westerners are descendants of monkeys.”96

“Westerners have big noses and yellow eyes.”97

Much emphasis here is put on differences in appearance and race. Some remain

simply descriptive, while others are rather pejorative. Also, a clear flashback of Western

racial discourse can be seen in expressions like “yellow faces” and the use of term

“monkeys”, which is reversed. Frank Dikötter argues that “racial discourse, which has

sometimes been more about imagined cultural inclusions than about real social

encounters, has shaped the identity of millions of people in East Asia: although it is a

historically contingent object which is constantly rearticulated in adaptations to changing

91 Nikkan kaiwa (日韓會話, 1894) p.61.92 Ibid. p.93.93 Kango kyōkasho (韓語教科書, 1905) p.157.94 Ibid. p.202.95 Kango dokushūshi tsuki saikin kankoku kigyō annai (韓語獨習誌附最近韓國起業案内, 1905) Vol.2,p.12.96 Taiyaku nikkan kaiwa shōkei (對譯日韓會話捷徑, 1905) pp.107.97 Ibid. p.136.

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environments, its fundamental role in creating both Self and Other has given it a

particular kind of resilience so that it often survives social, economic and political

changes” (10).

4.3.3 Summary

The various examples cited above from language manuals produced for the

Japanese from the late 1800s to the early 1900s confirm the usefulness of the four-pattern

theory of national thinking proposed by Erica Benner in that the application of the

patterns to the analysis of the manuals helps us to explain better the complexities of

discourse formations in nation-building and colonialism. By contrast, historical periods

are too vast and inclusive to allow for more specific instantiation. Overall, the emphasis

should be placed on the periods when “cautious engagement” gradually culminates in

“enlightened leadership,” i.e., roughly between 1895 through the 1920s, to afford a closer

examination of how colonialist discourse, from both above and below, shaped the target

language (in this case, Korean) through its “articulation” in Japanese.

4.4 Pan-Asianism in the sinographic cultural sphere

Pan-Asianism was the favorite rhetoric and pet theory of the language manual

authors. Today, “sinosphere,” “East Asian cultural sphere,” “Chinese cultural sphere,”

and “Chinese-character cultural sphere” are all different terms used to refer to the shared

cultural elements in a group of East Asian countries, namely: China, Korea, Japan and

Vietnam. Amongst various common denominators are geographic proximity, shared

political and religious models, historical interactions, and perhaps more basically,

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adaptation of Chinese characters or sinographs as the writing medium. Following

Sheldon Pollock’s term for Sanskrit-based cultures – the Sanskrit Cosmopolis98 – we

might also call it the Sinographic Cosmopolis.

Lately, trans-regional research projects are attempting to reveal facets of a greater

picture emerging from the combination of shared cultural elements in this sphere. For

instance, in the field of Classical Chinese literature, Judy Wakabayashi (2005), Sasahara

Hiroyuki (2008), and Kin Bunkyō (2010) compare the translation techniques and

practices of composition in Classical Chinese in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

Jean-Noel Robert (2001) also strongly argues for the importance of studying Classical

Chinese as the underlying fabric of common East Asian culture even today.

Observing current trans-regionalist and pan-Asianist trends in East Asia, one

might notice that the majority of scholars who adhere to such frameworks are from Japan

and/or are in Japanese Studies. About a century ago, pan-Asianism based on sinographs

(dōbun dōshu) was a “pet theory” used by the Japanese to propagate “the Greater East

Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” According to Lee Sungsi (2000), the term higashi ajia

bunkaken (East Asian cultural sphere), from which today’s East Asianism trend derives,

was coined by Japanese scholar Nishijima Sadao (1919-1998). In the 1960s, he and his

teacher, Uehara Senroku (1899-1975), intended to change the Western-centered paradigm

by offering a new paradigm in historiography. Lee argues that such a stance is produced

by re-interpretations of the past and a rebuilding of historical frameworks, and that it is

dangerous to subscribe to such frames of reference without knowing the historical

background that gave birth to such concepts.

98 Pollock, Sheldon. 2009. The language of the gods in the world of men: Sanskrit, culture, and power inpremodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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The main goal of the following sub-sections is to explain how this pan-Asianist

trend developed in Japan about a century ago. I will examine the idea of pan-Asianism as

it appeared during the Meiji era (1868-1912) and how it spread to Korea and beyond,

transforming into the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” Pan-Asianism had wide

implications, ranging from the fields of historiography to folklore studies and politics.

Indeed, Nishijima, the initiator of today’s pan-Asianism trend, originally proposed the

concept in the context of ancient and premodern history, from which it later spread to

other fields. In this section, I shall limit my focus to language studies.

4.4.1 Pan-Asianism in Japan vis-à-vis shifts in Japanese nationalism

“Identification with Asia was not always an affirmative experience, …but Asia, as

Oguma Eiji points out, always functioned as a mirror for Japanese efforts at defining Japanese

identity.” (Saaler: 3)

The history of modernity for Japan started with the country’s rejection of “Asian

ties,” primarily those with China. Japan had been under heavy cultural influence from

China since ancient times, adopting religions, governmental institutions, and Chinese

script. With the encroachment of the Western imperialist powers, Japan after the Meiji

Restoration (1867-8) rushed to modernize itself under the slogan of bunmei kaika

(civilization and enlightenment), ranging from the Westernization of its military to the

industrialization of its economy. For this new departure as a modern nation, detachment

from and decentering of China, the old model, was deemed essential by the new Japanese

government and by progressivist thinkers such as Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901), who

proclaimed this view in a title that says it all: Escape Asia (Datsu-A ron脱亜論, 1885) –

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a book that sold millions of copies (Benner: 29). With the rise of nationalism in Japan in

the late 1880s, pan-Asianism found itself in an extremely unfriendly environment.

Japanese were eager to distance themselves from Asian traditions and to seek an

independent identity (Sato: 126-7). “The nation was conceived as an extended family,

with the Emperor as semi-divine father of the nation and the head of state… Japanese

ideologues borrowed theories of national discourse from Western nationalists and

accordingly manipulated indigenous myths” (Weiner: 101). “The diffusion of social

Darwinism, in particular, would provide scientific legitimacy for both the market laws

and the notion that social and political development was a manifestation of the aggressive

interplay of natural forces” (ibid.: 102).

A similar phenomenon occurred in the sphere of language studies, which was also

soon reached by the wave of Westernization and nationalization. At the epicenter was

Ueda Kazutoshi (1867-1937) in the Department of Linguistics at Tokyo Imperial

University (today’s University of Tokyo), the first chief professor of the department. In

June 1894, upon his return from three and a half years of studying philology in Europe,

Ueda was appointed professor of linguistics at the Imperial University, where he

transplanted what he had learned from abroad (Lee: 78). This took place only two

months before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) (ibid.: 87). Besides, the

linguistic turbulence in the Meiji era (1868-1911) was closely tied to consciousness of the

“nation-state” and the “empire,” triggered by the Sino-Japanese War (ibid.: 54). Ueda, in

his Kokugo to Kokka to (The National Language and The Nation-State国語と国家と,

1894), emphasized that “the Japanese polity had been, and would continue to be,

sustained by the Japanese ‘race,’ and argued that the Japanese language itself was the

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manifestation of the inherited qualities of its people” (Weiner: 103). This was yet another

aspect of what he had learned in Germany. I have covered this in detail already in

Chapter 2.

Under the direction of Ueda, one of the common goals of researchers in the

department of linguistics was to contextualize the Japanese language on the world map.

Where did it come from? Are there any languages that share the same roots? While

studying different languages, the researchers were interested to discover their relatedness

to Japanese. For example, Fujioka Katsuji was in charge of the Manchu and Mongol

languages, Iha Fuyū, Ryūkyūan, Kindaichi Kyōsuke, Ainu, Gotō Asatarō, Chinese, and

Ogura Shinpei, Korean (Yasuda: 45). Ueda’s colleague and Ogura’s teacher, Kanazawa

Shōzaburō, was also in the department. His well-known theory, called nissen dōsoron,

claimed that Japanese and Korean language shared the same roots99.

During the Meiji era, pan-Asianism had been a vague romantic and idealistic

feeling of Asian solidarity; for instance, Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzō) (1862-1913), who is

today regarded as a representative figure of pan-Asianism, coined the famous phrase

“Asia is one” in 1903 in English, and also some activists tried to strengthen contacts with

their counterparts in Asia, such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen, Kim Ok-

kyun, and so forth (Saaler: 6-7). Pan-Asianism on a broader scale surfaced as a result of

“the growing consciousness of Japanese national strength and the rise of Japan as a

leading regional power” (ibid.: 7). Because the spread of pan-Asianist thought in Japan

was a consequence of growing its national strength, it was being observed with increasing

suspicion in other Asian countries; consequently, inter-Asian dialogues on pan-Asianism

99 Kanazawa, Shōzaburō. 1910. Nikkan ryōkokugo dōkeiron. Tokyo: Sanseidō Shoten.Kanazawa, Shōzaburō. 1929. Nissen dōsoron. Tokyo: Tōkō Shoin.

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practically ended in the late 1920s (ibid.: 8-9). On the other hand, as the pan-Asian

movement was becoming more influential in political circles in Japan, its ideology

became more concrete and better defined with clear concepts of regional integration, such

as “sameness of culture and script, racial sameness” (dōbun dōshu), “alliance of the

yellow races,” Confucian tradition, geographical proximity (often represented in an

idiomatic expression, ichii taisui一衣帯水; literally, located only a stream away from

each other), historical legacy of the Sinocentric order (rhetoric like “Japan was paying a

debt of gratitude to Korea and China”), etc. (ibid.: 9-10)

After Japan’s victory in the two wars – the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5), in which

Japan beat its old model, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), in which Japan defeated

a Western imperialist power – Japan presented itself as a new imperialist player in the

game of power in Asia, taking Taiwan as its colony and making Korea its protectorate.

In search of handy theories to rationalize Japan’s entry into Asia and its right to exercise

control over the internal affairs of other Asian nations, concepts like nissen dōsoron and

dōbun dōshu (same script, same race) were welcomed, but often used only in their

superficial meanings.100 Moreover, although neither the public’s perception of China nor

the country’s educational policies toward Chinese characters were unified, advocates of

kanbun (Classical Chinese writing) saw the time as a perfect moment to stress the

immutable differences between “East” and “West.” They increasingly racialized

different identities into an opposition between the “white” and the “yellow” (Sato: 128-

100 For example, according to Takashi Mitsui (1999), Kanazawa’s nissen dōsoron originally argues thatKorean and Japanese share the same roots and compares their relationship to that of older and youngerbrother. Nonetheless, it was modified to suit the political agenda of the time and the positions of older andyounger brother were reversed in his later works. Kanazawa’s successor, Ogura Shinpei, who wasinterested in ascertaining the genealogy of both languages through old Korean poetry and dialectologyresearch, showed modest disagreement with Kanazawa’s nissen dōsoron (Yasuda: 1999).

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9). Indeed, the vision of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” was already in the

making with the calls for expulsion of Western powers from Asia and establishment of

Japanese hegemony (ibid.: 135).

“Pan-Asianism, above all, was an activist ideology, and the rationale underlying

the ideology was adjusted over time in quite opportunistic ways” (Saaler: 10-11).

The problem with analyzing the historical phenomenon of Pan-Asianism is the fact that

many of its protagonists were Japanese, who often asserted Japanese leadership in a pan-

Asian regional order, a trend related to Japanese colonialism (ibid.: 11). “As a result,

ideals such as Asian solidarity and equality favored by early pan-Asianists, were pushed

into the background” (ibid.: 11-12). “However, even claims for Japanese leadership have

to be seen in the context of anti-colonialism directed against Western influence in Asia.

To be sure, Japanese leadership and a Japanese role model at times also were

acknowledged in parts of Asia, particularly after Japan’s victory over Russia in 1904-5.

But such appraisals of a Japanese model soon disappeared, particularly after pan-Asian

rhetoric was drawn upon to legitimize Japanese colonial rule.” (ibid.: 11-12)

“Hegemonic Pan-Asianism in Japanese foreign policy had its climax in November

1943, when the representatives of six Asian governments – Japan, Manchukuo, China,

Burma, Thailand, and the Philippines – met in Tokyo at the Greater East Asian

Conference (Daitō-A kaigi) or the ‘Assembly of Greater East Asiatic Nations’ and

discussed the future of Asia. After the lengthy address by Japan’s Prime Minister, Tōjō

Hideki, and speeches by the representatives of the other participating nations as well as

the Indian observer, Chandra Bose, the summit issued a Joint Declaration, the Daitō-A

Sengen.” (ibid.: 13) “This declaration later served to mobilize support, such as natural

124

resources, from fellow nations. The pan-Asianism at the Tokyo Conference was above

all inspired by economic autarky for warfare against the world’s superpowers, Great

Britain and the United States” (ibid.: 13-14). Many Japanese soldiers in Southeast Asia

were indoctrinated to believe that they were fighting for the liberation of Asian peoples,

and the language manuals edited for them are also full of such Pan-Asian rhetoric.

4.4.2 Korea before 1905 – nationalism vs. pan-Asianism

In today’s Korea, the form of pan-Asianism prevalent during the early twentieth

century in Korea is commonly considered to be the ideology of “Korean collaborators”

under colonial rule. Nevertheless, Shin Gi-Wook argues that pan-Asianism and

nationalism emerged as two major modern ideologies in Korea when Korea began to face

Western challenges. “Both shared a sense of crisis and urgency in creating a new identity

that could offer a conceptual framework for defending and strengthening Korea in its

increasingly precarious situation… Ultimately, nation triumphed over region as a

defining source of Korean identity. Yet this outcome was not inevitable or predetermined.

Indeed, its triumph was historically contingent: it was Japan’s colonization that stripped

legitimacy of pan-Asianism as a course of a new Korea.” (Shin: 39-40)

In the early years, pan-Asianism in Japan contained an element of idealism (ibid.:

33). Korean pan-Asianists positioned themselves as part of the yellow race, rather than

as a distinctive race within East Asia. Underscoring the shared cultural heritage, they

called for regional solidarity and cooperation against the threat of Western white

imperialism. Using a traditional metaphor, Korea, Japan, and China were depicted as

125

“lips and teeth” (sunch’i chi kuk脣齒之國),101 indicating that, based on geographical

proximity, “East Asian nations could survive the white onslaught only if the three acted

together” (ibid.: 31). Among Western imperialist powers, Russia was regarded as the

common threat to them. For instance, Yun Ch’iho, a progressive leader of the

Independence Association (Tongnip Hyŏphoe), maintained that there was a “common

bond among East Asians and called for their unity against the ‘arrogant’ white race,

particularly the Russians” (ibid.: 32).

After Japan made Korea its protectorate, Korean advocates of pan-Asianism

expressed a bitter sense of betrayal and anxiety having come face-to-face with Japanese

imperialists. Editorials in Hwangsŏng Sinmun, an early supporter of pan-Asianism,

“charged that Japan would protect and promote only its own interests without regard to

its neighboring nations and thus would cooperate only to ensure its own national

interests. In their view, Japan was an uncertain partner with the West and could be so in

the East as well” (ibid.: 34). They contended that “the treaty not only jeopardized the

security of Korea but also put the whole East Asian region into peril by creating division

and tension among neighbor nations” (ibid.: 35).

4.4.3 Summary: limitations of pan-Asianism – the perspective of kokugo

With the annexation of Taiwan in 1895 and Korea in 1910, Japan emerged as a

colonial power in the East, and its concepts of pan-Asianism were remodeled into

101 Similar expressions (“lips and teeth” relationship, etc.) repeatedly appear in the prefaces of Koreanlanguage manuals published around the turn of the century, in order to call for unity based on a sharedcultural heritage and geographical proximity, together with “same script, same race (dōbun dōshu)” logic.One language manual author even suggested researching the relationship between Japanese and otherlanguages as far afield as Hebrew in order to seek the basis for a greater alliance in the future (Chōsengogaku hitori annai; Preface No.2).

126

ideologies of colonial racism. The discourse directed at the locals was no longer about an

equal alliance against the West, but about an alliance with the Japanese as an

“enlightened leader” burdened with a “civilizing mission.” Japan was thus to become the

center of “civilization” and the Japanese language was to become its medium. As part of

this trend, the Japanese domestic educational system was extended to the new territories

overseas with minor modifications. Primary importance was placed on teaching Japanese

– or kokugo (the “national language”).

One intriguing feature of the Korean language manuals written for the Japanese is

that in the prefatory matter many Japanese authors pushed for the idea of East Asian unity

based on the shared cultural heritage as in dōbun dōshu, whereas in the contents of the

manuals, they rather emphasized the uniqueness and superiority of Japanese culture and

race as well as its leadership in East Asia.

127

5. Conclusions

In order to examine colonialist discourse in Japanese linguistics in the period from

1868 to 1945, this thesis is divided in two parts: an examination of Japanese language

education both in Japan itself and in Japanese colonies, and a study of language manuals

for Japanese.

What is special about the Japanese colonial enterprise vis-à-vis other colonial

powers is that the formation of the nation-state ideology and imperial expansion took

place practically simultaneously, and that language was a key tool in both projects. Japan

launched its colonial enterprise without first conducting domestic standardization of the

Japanese language, which often resulted in discursive violence in the form of inconsistent

assimilation policies. Although kokugo language proficiency was used as the scale to

measure colonial subjects’ degree of “civilization” as well as their loyalty to the Japanese

nation, the colonized people in the overseas colonies and military occupied areas in Asia,

as well Ryūkyūans and Ainus who spoke Japanese “dialects,” could never blend into the

closed concept of kokugo ideology because the “Japanese spirit” was only conveyed

through kokugo – the nation’s “blood.” Thus, any modification to this national language

was considered a breach of the national polity (kokutai), which made it extremely

difficult to carry out language reforms and policies. The concept of kokugo was so over-

politicized as to preclude the possibility of any academic reforms or structural

refinements in tandem with its political expansion overseas.

I have also examined the theoretical frameworks prevalent in language policies,

through an analysis of the contents and prefaces of language manuals. First I introduced

the four-pattern theory of national thinking presented by Erica Benner (2006) and

128

examine how the military conscription system functioned in Japan’s nation building.

Pan-Asianism was one of the favorite rhetoricical devices and pet theory of the language

manual authors. The problem with analyzing the historical phenomenon of pan-Asianism

is that many of its protagonists were Japanese, who often asserted Japanese leadership in

a pan-Asian regional order – a trend related to Japanese colonialism. As a result, ideals

such as Asian solidarity and equality favored by early pan-Asianists were soon pushed

into the background.

The language manuals for Japanese soldiers that I examined were published

between 1882 and 1935. As the publication years grow more recent, we see in the

prefaces and manual contents, shifts in the forms of nationalism and pan-Asianist rhetoric

occurring in tandemwith the rise of colonialist discourse. Although my primary interest

is in Korea, these wartime language manuals frequently cover not only Japanese and

Korean, but also other languages including English, Mandarin, and Russian, thus

instantiating a multilayered discourse on the target languages as well as on the Japanese

language itself. The various examples cited from the language manuals produced for the

Japanese from the period exemplify the complexities of discourse formations in nation-

building and colonialism.

All the previous scholarship on the soldier manuals in Japan relies on

historiography rather than on nationalist discourse analysis and is therefore somewhat too

arbitrary and premeditated when one deals with the particularities of language-related

discourse in Japan in the periods dealt with here. Still, much remains to be done. In my

later work I plan to address in greater detail the issue of the formation of the national

language in Japan, and how this impacted Korean linguistics by looking more closely at

129

the Korean sentence structures provided in the manuals. An even larger project is

possible if one is to incorporate the analysis of Chinese and Russian equivalents of the

sentences analyzed in this thesis. These tasks remain for the future.

130

Table 2: List of the language manuals studiedYear Title Title Authors, etc. Authors

1882 和韓会話獨學Wakan kaiwadokugaku 武田甚太郎 Takeda Jintarō

1892 日韓英三國對話Nichi kan eisangoku taiwa 赤峰瀬一郎

AkamineSeichirō

1893 日韓通話 Nikkan tsūwa

國分國夫著/柳苾根：朴齋尚

閲KokubunKunio

1894 實用朝鮮語 Jitsuyō chōsengo 中島謙吉NakajimaKenkichi

1894 朝鮮俗語早學Chōsen zokugohaya manabi 松栄竹次郎 Shōei Takejirō

1894 兵要朝鮮語 Heiyō chōsengo近衛步兵第一

旅團/多田桓Konoe hoheidaiichi ryodan

1894 新撰朝鮮會話Shinsen chōsenkaiwa 洪奭鉉 Hong Sŏkhyŏn

1894従軍必携 朝鮮

獨案内

Jūgun hikkeichōsen hitoriannai 栗林次彦

KuribayashiTsugihiko

1894速成獨学 朝鮮

日本會話篇

Sokusei dokugakuchōsen nihonkaiwa hen 阪井武堂閲

1894 日韓會話 Nikkan kaiwa 參謀本部 Sanbō honbu

1894獨習速成 日韓

淸會話

Dokushū sokuseinichi kan shinkaiwa 吉野佐之助

YoshinoSanosuke

1894 日淸韓三國會話Nichi shin kansangoku kaiwa

坂井釟五郎著/

多田桓閲SakaiHachigorō

1894日淸韓三國對照

會話篇

Nichi shin kansangoku taishōkaiwa hen 松本仁吉

MatsumotoNikichi

1894宣戰勅語入 日

淸韓對話便覧

Sensen chokugoiri nichi shin kantaiwa benran 田口文治 Taguchi Bunji

1894旅行必用日韓淸

對話自在

Ryokō hitsuyōnichi kan shintaiwa jizai 太刀川吉次郎

TachikawaYoshijirō

1894 朝鮮通語獨案内Chōsen tsūgohitori annai 池田勘四郎 Ikeda Kanshirō

1894 朝鮮語學獨案内Chōsen gogakuhitori annai 松岡馨

MatsuokaKaoru

131

Year Title Title Authors, etc. Authors

1895 日淸韓語獨稽古Nisshinkangohitorigeiko 漢学散人

KangakuSanjin

1895 日語捷徑 Nichigo shōkei 金沢末吉KanazawaSuekichi

1895日話朝雋:單語連語

Nichiwa chōshun:tango rengo

李鳳雲：境益

太郞著/新庄順貞閲

Yi Pongun:Sakai Ekitarō

1896實地應用朝鮮語

獨學書

Jicchi ōyōchōsengodokugakusho

弓場重英：内

藤健Yumiba Jūei:Naitō Ken

1897日語獨學:簡易捷徑

Nichigodokugaku: kan'ishōkei 弓場重榮 Yumiba Jūei

1900日淸韓三國千字

文Nisshinkansangoku senjimon 荒浪平治郎

AranamiHeijirō

1901 朝鮮語獨習(修)Chōsengodokushū 松岡馨

MatsuokaKaoru

1902 實用韓語學Jitsuyōkangogaku 島井浩 Shimai Hiro

1903 日韓通話捷径Nikkan tsūwashōkei

田村謙吾著/國

分象太郎閲 Tamura Kengo

1903 日語獨習書Nichigodokushūsho

郭祖培:熊金壽著/村上惠遵閲

Kwak Chobae:Ung Kŭmsu

1904 韓語會話 Kango kaiwa村上三男著/山座圓次郞閲

MurakamiMitsuo

1904 滿韓土語案内Mankandogoannai 平山治久

HirayamaHaruhisa

1904日露淸韓會話早

まなび

Nichiroshinkankaiwahayamanabi

小須賀一郎著/重枝正樹閲 Kosuga Ichirō

1904日韓會話獨習(

書)Nikkan kaiwadokushūsho 山本治三

YamamotoHaruzō

1904いろは引朝鮮語

案内Iroha hikichōsengo annai

林山松吉著/金嘩徇閲

HayashiyamaShōkichi

1904實地應用日韓會

話獨習Jicchi ōyō nikkankaiwa dokushū

勝本永次著/李有鎔閲 Katsumoto Eiji

1904日露淸韓會話自

在Nichiroshinkankaiwa jizai 通文書院 Tsūbun shoin

1904日露淸韓會話自

在法Nichiroshinkankaiwa jizaihō 武智英 Takechi Ei

132

Year Title Title Authors, etc. Authors

1904 校訂 交隣須知 Kōtei kōrinsuchi 前間恭作MaemaKyōsaku

1904最新日韓會話案

内Saishin nikkankaiwa annai 嵩山堂編輯局 Sūzandō

1904四國會話:日英對照支那朝鮮

Shikoku kaiwa:nichi ei taishōshina chōsen 川邊紫石

KawabeShiseki

1904出征必携日露淸

韓會話

Shussei hikkeinichiroshinkankaiwa 山本富太郎

YamamotoTomitarō

1904日韓會話三十日

間速成

Nikkan kaiwasanjū’nichikansokusei

金島苔水：李

鎭豊

KanashimaTaisui: YiChinp’ung

1905實用日韓會話獨

學Jitsuyō nikkankaiwa dokugaku

島井浩：兪競

鎭Shimai Hiro:Yu Kyŏngjin

1905 韓語教科書 Kango kyōkasho金島笞水：広

野韓山

KanashimaTaisui: HironoKanzan

1905

韓語獨習誌附

最近韓國起業案

内第１〜３編

Kangodokushūshi tsukisaikin kankokukigyō annai

藤戸計太著/柳苾根閲 Fujito Keita

1905 日淸韓會話 Nisshinkan kaiwa呉完與：劉泰

昌閲 O Wanyŏ

1905日語捷徑:獨修自在

Nichigo shōkei:dokushū jizai

金島笞水：広

野韓山

KanashimaTaisui: HironoKanzan

1905日語捷徑:一名日本文法栞

Nichigo shōkei:ichimeinihonbunpō shiori

長尾永五郞著/和田純閲 Nagao Eigorō

1905 對譯日韓新會話Taiyaku nikkanshinkaiwa

金島笞水：広

野韓山

KanashimaTaisui: HironoKanzan

1905對譯日韓會話捷

徑Taiyaku nikkankaiwa shōkei

金島笞水：広

野韓山

KanashimaTaisui: HironoKanzan

1905 獨學韓語大成Dokugaku kangotaisei

伊藤伊吉著/李秉昊閲 Itō Ikichi

1905日韓淸英露五國

單語會話篇

Nichi kan shin eiro gokoku tangokaiwa hen 堀井友太郎

HoriiTomotarō

1905 日清韓会話 全Nisshinkan kaiwazen 栗本長質

KurimotoChōshichi

133

Year Title Title Authors, etc. Authors

1906 韓語正規 Kango seiki近藤信一著/金澤庄三郞閲

KondōNobukazu

1906 日韓韓日新會話Nikkan kannichishinkaiwa 島井浩 Shimai Hiro

1906 日韓言語合璧Nikkan gengogōheki 金島苔水

KanashimaTaisui

1906六十日間卒業日

韓會話獨修

Rokujūnichikansotsugyō nikkankaiwa dokushū

柳淇英：高木

常次郞

Yu Kiyŏng:TakagiTsunejirō

1907 朝鮮語獨稽古Chōsengohitorigeiko 柿原治郞 Kakihara Jirō

1907 日韓いろは辭典 Nikkan iroha jiten柿原治郎：朴

容觀

Kakihara Jirō:ParkYonggwan

1909 韓語文典 Kango bunten 高橋亨TakahashiTōru

1909大速成二個月日

語獨習書

Daisokuseinikagetsu nichigodokushūsho 陸種冕

YukChongmyŏn

1909 韓語通 Kangotsū 前閒恭作MaemaKyōsaku

1909 韓日英新會話Kan nichi eishinkaiwa

鮮于叡：鄭雲

復Sŏn Uye:Chŏng Unbok

1909文法註釋韓語硏

究法Bunpō chūshakukango kenkyūhō 藥師寺知曨

YakushijiChirō

1909精選日韓言文

自通Seisen nikkangenbun jitsū 宋憲奭 Song Hyŏnsŏk

1909 精選日語大海Seisen nichigotaikai 朴重華 Pak Chunghwa

1910 韓語學大全 Kangogaku taizen 津田房吉TsudaFusakichi

1910 日韓韓日言語集Nikkan kannichigengoshū

趙義淵：井田

勤衛Cho Ŭiyŏn:Ida Kin’e

1911國語朝鮮語字音

及用字比較例

Kokugo chōsengojion oyobi yōjihikakurei

官立漢城外國

語學校

Kanritsu kanjōgaikokugogakkō

1913 日鮮遞信會話Nissen teishinkaiwa

朝鮮總督府逓

信局

Chōsensōtokufuteishinkyoku

1914 日語大學 Nichigo daigaku 朴重華 Pak Chunghwa

1914 朝鮮語會話獨習Chōsengo kaiwadokushū 山本治三

YamamotoHaruzō

134

Year Title Title Authors, etc. Authors

1914 가나다國語大典Kanada kokugotaiten 千潤錫 Ch’ŏn Yunsŏk

1915 朝鮮熟語解釋Chōsen jukugokaishaku 山之井麟治 Yamanoi Rinji

1917朝鮮語法及會話

書Chōsengohōoyobi kaiwasho 朝鮮總督府

Chōsensōtokufu

1917 日鮮會話精通

Nissen kaiwa

seitsū西村眞太郞

Nishimura

Shintarō

1918 朝鮮語の先生Chōsengo nosensei 崔在翊 Ch’oe Chaeik

1918ポケット日鮮語

會話Poketto nissengokaiwa

藤戸計太：村

上唯吉

Fujito Keita:MurakamiTadakichi

1918 鮮語階梯 Sengo kaitei

新庄順貞：金

澤庄三郞/朝鮮總督府発行

Shinjō Juntei:KanazawaShōzaburō

1920實用本位日鮮辭

典Jitsuyō hon’inissen jiten 井口弥壽男 Iguchi Yasuo

1920

新案獨學鮮語自

在:日鮮いろは辭典附

Shin’an dokugakusengo jizai:nissen iroha jitentsuki 笹山章

SasayamaAkira

1921 新新朝鮮語會話Shin shinchōsengo kaiwa

山本正誠著/田中德太郞：柳

苾根閲YamamotoMasanari

1921 現代新語釋義Gendai shingoshakugi 崔演澤

Ch’oeYŏnt’aek

1923日本人之朝鮮語

獨學 全

Nihonjin nochōsengodokugaku 朴重華 Pak Chunghwa

1923 朝鮮語硏究 Chōsengo kenkyū 山本正誠YamamotoMasanari

192564-1~7.普通學校朝鮮語/漢文正解

Futsū gakkōchōsengo seikai

初等敎育硏究

會編Shotōkyoikukenkyūkai

1925 日鮮會話獨習Nissen kaiwadokushū 田中東 Tanaka Azuma

1926朝鮮語發音及文

法

Chōsengohatsuon oyobibunpō 李完應 Yi Wanŭng

1926 現行朝鮮語法Genkōchōsengohō 鄭國采

ChŏngKukch’ae

135

Year Title Title Authors, etc. Authors1926 日鮮解話辭典 Nissen kaiwa jiten 禹鎔根 U Yonggŭn

1933 精選國語大範Seisen kokugotaihan 朴重華 Pak Chunghwa

1935 朝鮮語敎科書Chōsengokyōkasho 黃義東 Hwang Ŭidong

136

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